Closer to Home
by WarlordFil
Summary: Falling in love is easy-it's staying in love that's hard. Shepard and Garrus' fight to reconcile their cultural differences is complicated by family and foes conspiring to tear them apart. Sequel to "Where Angels Fear To Tread." Updates monthly.
1. Chapter 1: The Long Way Home

**Author's Note:**

This story is a direct sequel to "Where Angels Fear To Tread."

This story is beginning to venture into hypothetical territory, that might well be invalidated by the events of forthcoming Mass Effect fictions/games. From here on in, this is my take, which may diverge a little or a lot from the established canon, depending on how that canon evolves.

The chapter title is taken from the song "The Long Way Home" by Rawlins Cross and if you can find it on youtube I recommend having a listen :)

Enjoy!

#

**Closer to Home**

**Chapter the First: The Long Way Home**

The door of the main battery had barely closed behind her when Garrus' hands closed around her hips. Commander Shepard felt her heart rate spike and her whole body grow warm; she'd been wanting Garrus all evening and the waiting had been hellish.

Garrus hesitated a hair's breadth before their bodies touched, his eyes searching hers as if to seek permission.

Shepard didn't bother to speak. She wrapped her arms over his shoulders and pressed her lips to his mouth. Let that be her permission.

He needed no further orders to finish what he'd started. He guided her against him until her body molded to his. She could feel his mandibles fluttering against her cheeks, hear the growl deep in his throat, smell his scent in the air. Her body was heating, moistening, tingling, and she had a funny quiver in her tummy that was both wonderful and awful at once.

Shepard felt as though she and Garrus were caught in a strange limbo between friendship and romance. Ever since that damn kiss the night after she'd pulled him off Omega, she'd started thinking of him as a potential lover—without ever questioning that he was also, and foremost, her very best friend, and the closest thing she had to family in this vast and cold universe. When she'd tried to talk to him about it—which she'd screwed up by basically asking him if he wanted a fling—he'd seem interested, and yet strangely reserved. On the night before the Omega-4 relay, they'd somehow managed to turn touching alone into something more intimate than any sex she'd ever had, and after they'd both come back alive, they'd gone further still. Yet Garrus had practically ignored her during the victory party, at least when it came to being anything more than "the Commander's old war buddy, Officer Vakarian."

Sooner or later she'd have to have a talk with him, to ask him if he felt he couldn't risk the repercussions of making this new dynamic between them public, or if he was hiding it for her sake. Right now, though, she was finding it more and more difficult to concentrate when Garrus was nibbling his way down her neck.

Her initial fear that he'd lose interest after satisfying his curiosity had been pretty well discarded. She could feel his hips against hers and he felt very, very interested from where she stood.

Garrus reached the collar of her work suit and clearly didn't want to stop. He took the cloth in his teeth and tugged at it, making a soft snarling noise.

"Careful," she laughed, "you'll rip it."

"So get rid of it," he growled back, and then, as if shocked by his own behaviour, he added, "Please?"

Shepard didn't want the damn thing on any more either, but as she climbed out of her suit and tossed it to the floor—as Garrus pressed his forehead against her jaw and started licking her collarbone with his raspy tongue—she realized what this would look like if anyone were to walk in on them.

Shepard had always been very careful about the circumstances in which she'd allowed herself to...indulge. Her private quarters, or her partner's. Motels. Once, a tent.

Never in the main battery of a ship.

The idea simultaneously terrified her and thrilled her. She took a step backwards and found herself leaning back against the gun console, where Garrus had spent so long working on the Thanix cannon. God, they were getting out of control. This wasn't like her. She should tell him to stop.

Instead, she found herself smiling up at him, and said, "Hey, Vakarian. Calibrate _this_."

#

There was no mirror in the main battery. Garrus found himself trying to catch a glimpse of his reflection in the shiny surfaces around him, just in case he'd overlooked some incriminating detail like doing up all his buttons or fastening his belt.

Inches away, Shepard was doing the same. "Did I forget anything?" she asked.

Garrus looked her over—just once. He resisted the temptation to look her over a second time, knowing damn well if he did, they'd end up right back where they started. "Looks fine to me, though you might want to straighten your, uh, hair." Damn, he was starting to love that hair, especially when it got all tousled from...no, that line of thought would_ also _lead to instant replay. "Did I?"

"I don't think so." Shepard also didn't seem able to look at him too closely.

Garrus folded his arms. "Well, now that we've made sure I'll _never be able to concentrate in here again_, what would you like to do?" He flared his mandibles in a grin.

But Shepard wasn't smiling as she let out a heavy sigh and sat down on the crate at the side of the battery. "Garrus, we need to talk."

Garrus felt his insides clench. He'd known this was coming, and yet part of him dreaded it; the prospect of this conversation made him nervous, and _not_ in a good way. "Agreed. I can't keep this under wraps much longer, Shepard. Our crew is filled with smart people who are already asking questions. If we keep, er, meeting like this, they're going to figure it out."

He saw Shepard flinch. Okay, so he'd guessed wrong when he'd supposed she might not want the crew to know. On the other hand, he wasn't entirely sure she understood the consequences of taking their relationship public. The fallout would go far beyond vague disapproval of fraternization between a commander and her subordinate. He also had a nagging sense that maybe she _didn't _know the full extent of what she was doing to him; she might _not _realize that the situation was already beyond his capacity to influence. He wasn't exactly sure what she wanted, how much commitment she was ready for. And her emotional state—the vulnerability their lovemaking exposed—was gunpowder in an already volatile mixture.

He was a little shaken by the side of Shepard that he only saw in private; the uncertainty, the shyness, the fear. For all that she'd been the one to initiate this more physical aspect of their relationship, she'd seemed very reluctant to talk about the emotional aspects now that they weren't quite _best friends, nothing more and nothing less _any longer.

The appalled look on her face after the very first time she'd kissed him should have been a clue. Same with the tears she'd tried to hide before the Omega-Four relay. Her grudging reluctance to speak after their encounter in his room was simply one more manifestation of an underlying issue. Garrus didn't know the root of the problem, but he did know that something had hurt her at some point—very badly, and very deeply. Garrus' investigator's instincts told him it predated her disastrous first affair. Most people, having lost a love, would turn to family and friends for support. She had folded in on herself instead.

Just as he had after she had died.

Commander Shepard had always been so busy fighting on behalf of...well, first the Alliance, then the Council, and finally the whole damn universe...but who had ever fought for her? Garrus had a terrible suspicion the answer was _no one_. Commander Shepard, who had the ability to solve any issue with bullets and fists, but who did so only after words and compassion had failed... Garrus guessed she'd learned that compassion for others from Pastor Cora, but she had not learned how to ask for any for herself—or how to accept it when it was offered to her.

He knew this wouldn't be easy. But she needed him, whether she knew it or not.

_All right, Archangel, time to earn your wings._

"Shepard, I want us to be clear on this." He reached out and caught her hand in his. "I'd be happy to let them know, if that's what you'd like."

He could tell she looked relieved. "Then what's the problem, Garrus? Tomorrow I'll walk up to you in the mess, give you a big kiss, and tell everyone to enjoy the view while it's still a novelty."

Garrus scratched the back of his head. "It's not our crew I'm worried about. Any extreme Cerberus loyalists among them are likely to be leaving us soon anyway, and with EDI joined to the Normandy now, we could make do without them. It's what happens when we disembark that has me...concerned."

Shepard looked at him blankly. "You mean...sure, there's going to be some people—human and turian—with nasty things to say, but I never really pictured you as the kind of guy who cared what other people thought of you."

Her statement wasn't entirely accurate. Garrus knew all too well how it stung to spend twenty-odd years of his life trying, and failing, to be the son his father wanted him to be. He also knew, though, that he'd had an epiphany when he realized that the day he'd quit C-Sec to follow Shepard—and sacrificed his quest to earn his father's love in the process—had been the first day he'd really felt good about being Garrus Vakarian. Never mind that he was angry at Saren and frustrated with the Council and worried about his family's reaction and concerned about heading off with a mostly-human crew on a crazy mission all at the same time. Still, she had a point: social acceptance was far from his primary concern these days.

But he had more than just himself to think about.

"It's not me I'm thinking of, Shepard. You're the one already fighting an uphill battle, trying to get people to take the Reaper threat seriously. You don't need another reason for people to discredit you. There are a lot of old enmities between our people."

Shepard snorted. "I really don't think my personal life, particularly what you and I get up to in the privacy of our quarters, is going to swing public opinion about the Reapers," she said, "and if I'm wrong, I'm not afraid to punch that Khalisah Al-Jilani reporter if that's what it takes to shut her up." A little smirk crossed Shepard's face. "Actually, I'm kind of looking forward to the expression on the turian councilor's face when he finds out."

Garrus groaned. "What I'm trying to say is, we need to talk about what you want out of life: for your future, from me, that sort of thing. People are going to try to force our hand by slapping labels on...what we have here. They'll call us dating, serious, not serious, open relationship, engaged, all kinds of things, and when they start talking and asking questions, I need to know what to say to them."

Shepard blinked. "Tell them the truth."

"Not. Helpful." Garrus leaned in closer. "Shepard, what _is _the truth?"

#

Garrus was looking at her earnestly, intently, but his question pissed her off regardless.

"If you don't know how you feel about me, I sure as hell can't tell you, Vakarian."

The turian bristled and folded his arms. "It's already obvious how I feel about you. You're the unknown quantity here." His mandibles were fluttering madly and while she wasn't entirely sure what the expression signified, she could tell he was agitated. She had a sinking suspicion that a female turian—like the wonderfully flexible recon scout—would have known exactly what was going on in that head of his, but Commander Shepard, only human, couldn't even begin to guess.

"You know how you feel about me? Well that's just great, Garrus. Why don't you try telling me for a change?"

Shepard cringed at the sardonic tone coming out of her own mouth. All her uncertainty and self-doubt and insecurity was molding itself into a weapon and now she was hitting Garrus full force with it.

She watched him bristle. "I said I'd always be there when you needed me," he growled, clearly agitated. "What else do you want me to say?" He started pacing, his hands locked behind his back. "I don't know how humans do things. Do you want me to make you a promise?" His eyes darkened as his head snapped around to look at her. "I know you've been hurt by promises broken. I'm not inclined to waste my breath on words."

"So if that stuff about being there if I need you isn't a promise, what is it?" The damned quaver was back in her voice.

He grabbed her wrists in his talons; his nose was almost touching hers. His mandibles flared and half-twisted, giving him a very close look at a lot of very sharp teeth. "That's a _fact_, Shepard. An unchangeable, inexorable, tangible fact." The intensity on his face was frightening to behold. "And if we go off this ship, any turian we meet is going to pick up on it, because I will not and _cannot _hide my instinctive reactions to you. The _only _choice I have in this matter is what you want me to do and say about it, and I will do everything in my power to make this…whatever we are…look like…what you want…" He gazed into her eyes, and while she couldn't translate his expression, when he spoke, she could guess his emotion from the tone of his voice.

_Sorrow._

"You really don't understand, do you?" he whispered.

Shepard licked her lips. "So explain it to me."

He shrugged helplessly. "Turians don't do shades of grey. I…what I said…what I _feel_…I can never take it back." He tilted his head and eyed her through his visor, reminding her of a hunting hawk. The words coming out of his mouth were cryptic, disjointed, and Shepard couldn't decipher what he was trying to tell her beyond the fact that he sounded serious. "That's why this has to be your decision. I would never push you, and I would never stand in your way. I…"

He looked as though he were about to say more—maybe a lot more—but at that moment there was a loud, violent banging on the door.

"Why the fuck is this thing locked?" came a muttering voice, followed by a much louder shout, "Vakarian, open the fuck up!"

It was Jack.

Shepard's eyes flickered around the room, but there was really nowhere to hide. She couldn't fit behind the console and the single crate in the room wasn't nearly large enough to conceal her. Mouth dry, Shepard pressed herself against the wall next to the door on the off chance that she could slip out before Jack became aware of her presence.

"I'm serious, boy scout, if you don't open this door the fuck up, I'm going to smash it in with…"

Just that quickly, Officer Vakarian was back in control. He nodded to Shepard, and with a cool "I've got this," he opened the door, moved through, and closed it behind him.

Shepard trembled with the adrenaline still coursing through her system. She and Garrus had been about to—well, she wasn't sure if he was about to tell her he loved her or if they had been about to have one hell of a fight, but either way she'd have bled off this combat rush. The unresolved anticipation was going to wreak havoc with both her physical and emotional state, and there was nothing she could do now but listen to the conversation on the other side of the portal.

"Hello, Jack." That was Garrus, sounding like he'd pulled her over for a routine traffic stop. "A pleasure as always…"

"I want to know who you're screwing," Jack said bluntly.

"Heh. I never figured you for the kind to care about that sort of thing," Garrus replied smoothly. "Seems to me that gossip is a pastime better suited for a…cheerleader."

Shepard was torn between admiration for Garrus' dig and fear that the next sound she heard would be Garrus getting biotically slammed into—or through—the door.

"You have to tell me, Vakarian, I'm serious." Jack's voice was strangely subdued. Shepard had to strain to hear her next words, and they gave her a shock as the biotic convict choked out, "Everyone thinks it's _me_."

"Really. And you don't want the crew thinking you're fucking a turian, is that it?"

Jack snorted. "I don't care about _that_. I've done turians, asari, drell, even a krogan. No big deal."

"So the reason you're prying into my private life is…"

"I'll fuck turians, but I won't fuck _cops_."

The word was delivered with such disgust that Shepard had to slap her hand over her mouth and bite down on her tongue to stop from laughing out loud.

Garrus snorted and said, "Well, _ex_-cop now…"

That did it. The adrenaline screaming through her veins demanded an outlet, and here it was. Shepard started laughing for real, and the more she tried to stop herself, the funnier the situation became. A voice in the back of her mind was telling her she was emotionally wrecked for her to find something so stupid to be so uproariously funny, but that voice had no practical advice to give on how to stop her giggle fit.

"Hey, do you have someone in there?" Jack's voice was a warning that she ought to sober up, but that was so much easier said than done.

Garrus' answer was just a little too hasty. "No, I…"

"You _do_. You fucking do, boy scout! Let me see."

_Oh, shit._

"You aren't authorized to access the main battery!" Garrus protested, and Shepard heard scuffling sounds. She imagined Garrus throwing himself between Jack and the door control.

Jack had seemed to be in a good mood at the party, but her emotional state changed like the weather: drastically and without warning. She didn't sound drunk, though Shepard didn't know if that was good or bad. Drunk Jack would be more likely to start a fight, but also less likely to win it; alcohol and good judgment didn't go hand in hand.

"It's the cheerleader, isn't it?" Jack screeched. "That little bitch! She's going around starting rumours about me when she's the one sucking your big turian…"

Shepard sobered up, realizing the situation was getting rapidly out of control. She was the ship's captain; she needed to step in and restore order. But opening the door was tantamount to a confession, and Shepard didn't believe that Jack, or anyone else, would continue to swallow lies about calibrating the Thanix cannon for very much longer. Was she really ready to do this? What would she say to the crew, when she wasn't even sure for herself what she had—or what she wanted? On the other hand, if anything happened to Garrus, Shepard would never forgive herself. Though he could take care of himself. Most of the time.

She was frozen with indecision. Her brain was telling her to stand up and own up, but her body wouldn't move, her subconscious was screaming incoherently and...

The door opened and Garrus walked in. Shepard had the vague sensation of time having passed. How long had she been standing there, at war with herself, trying to make up her own mind?

And Vakarian looked cranky.

Shepard licked her lips. "What's wrong?" she asked, though she feared she already knew the answer.

"I hate owing Krios one," came the reply.

Shepard blinked. "Krios?"

Garrus nodded. "He showed up as soon as Jack started ranting and whispered something in her ear. She said something back to him, something about Jacob and Miranda…then she got this big wicked grin and the two of them headed off." His face became pained. "I feel a little guilty about unleashing her that way, and that's not the worst of it. As he was leaving, Thane gave me this…this _look_…like he was saying _I know what you're up to_. I don't know. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it."

Shepard slouched back onto the crate. "Why can't everyone just fuck off while we work this out?"

Garrus sat, gingerly, on the other end of the crate. "Pressures of command, I suppose." The turian shot her a look. "You know he likes you."

"Who?"

"Krios."

Shepard let out a sigh. "Yeah. I know."

Silence.

Then, a raspy question, "Do you like him?"

"I don't need another guy who's going to die on me." She looked at the floor. "That sounds awful, I know."

"Like Kaiden."

"Like Kaiden, like my dad." She didn't want to talk about this. She turned to him, studied the scar on his face. She knew it was irrational, but… "You're not going to die on me, are you, Garrus?"

#

Garrus closed his eyes. He had nerve damage in the area of the scar; he couldn't feel her fingers on his skin, but he could feel their gentle pressure through the scarring. He knew he couldn't promise her that he'd never die, but by the Spirits, he wanted to. Instead he folded his arms around her, hoping that was answer enough.

How the hell was he to explain what had happened to him—what he'd let happen, because she was human, because he'd never imagined that he might bond this way to someone who wasn't even a turian. How could he take this gamble with a species so different from his own—and now that he was with her, how could he _not_? How could he do it without making her feel that she was being blackmailed or trapped? He could feel the tension in her now, the nervousness, the fear, and he knew this relationship scared her already. Already, when they were really only friends with benefits.

"Maybe we should take this slowly," he said, a quaver in his voice.

"Shit," Shepard muttered. "What's that _mean_?" she asked, running her hand over his mandible. "Ever notice how we can say the same words and somehow they come out different in our heads?"

"It means," he said softly, "yes, I've noticed. And I…" He swallowed hard and he stroked her cheek. "I don't think _love_ or _marriage _means the same thing to humans and turians."

Shepard shivered in his arms. "What are we, then?" she whispered.

"I think we need time to figure that out," Garrus murmured. "Time for you to ask yourself what you want. What you need. Time for us to decipher what language the other species uses so we can make sure we're talking about the same thing."

"More research," she snorted.

"I think you're worth the time," he replied. "Some things shouldn't be rushed."

"You're telling me to cool it," she translated.

"I think it's going to kill me but…yes, if we decide we don't want to…ah…take this farther…it would be a lot easier if the crew didn't know and weren't constantly commenting on it. And they're going to find out if we keep it up at the rate we've been going."

"Kasumi's already figured it out," Shepard muttered.

Garrus jumped—he couldn't help it—but the news wasn't really surprising. "If I catch her sneaking into my quarters, Shepard, I can't be held responsible for what might happen."

"You've got nothing worth stealing," Shepard said, trying to make him laugh, but the joke fell flat because it was true.

Some damn potential husband he was. No money. No career. He had no idea what turian social tier he was currently classified on, but he imagined it probably wasn't very high, not after he'd washed out of Spectre training and broken off contact with C-Sec, who would have accepted him back, and had commed him several times to tell him so. He'd never even bothered to respond to them, which would likely be classified as dereliction of duty.

She could do so much better.

She could find something closer to home.

"We need to take the time to do this right," he murmured in his ear, because doing it _wrong_ would be worse than not doing it at all.

He held her while he could, dreading the moment when she would eventually stand up and tell him she had work to do, and she'd see him around. The instant when his perfect point in time would be extended forward into an uncertain and unknowable future.

#

Shepard felt cranky and edgy as the Normandy soared towards the Citadel. After the past few weeks of constant danger, this leisurely interstellar cruise was driving her insane. For the past week, she'd had nothing to do but obsess about her relationship with Garrus, or the fact that while he once again seemed to be doing a great job of pretending to be nothing but her old war buddy—now both in private and in public—_she _seemed to be under constant strain not to touch him, to put her arms around him, to kiss him…to drag him up to her cabin for an afternoon's delight.

_We need to take the time to do this right_. She needed to respect him enough to honour those words. And, aside from that one little slip-up in the Hammerhead the other day, they'd been doing pretty good.

Still, Shepard was impatient.

She already knew what she wanted. She wanted Garrus to get over his issues and ask her out, already. She didn't care if the whole universe knew they were a couple. Why the hell couldn't they do what normal people did and go out on a few dates while they figured out if their relationship had long-term staying power?

Grudgingly, Shepard conceded that dating was what normal _humans _did.

Maybe it was different for turians, which was why she'd composed the elaborate scheme that had brought her to Zaeed's room today. She'd told the old mercenary that Jacob wanted his help in the armoury—Zaeed would never turn down the opportunity to play with guns—and she'd told Jacob…

Okay, she'd been a little unfair there. She'd told Jacob that she'd get Mordin to give him and Miranda some sex advice unless he kept Zaeed busy for a few hours.

Jacob had looked shocked, horrified and a little betrayed, but the point was that he'd agreed.

Then all she'd had to do was get Legion to shut off EDI's monitoring of this room, and hack Zaeed's door lock, and here she was, ready to search the extranet on Zaeed's personal computer.

Zaeed really couldn't complain about the invasion of privacy, she thought, not when he'd hacked the ship's feeds to put his own personal surveillance unit in the corner of his room. Right now, it was displaying a picture of the mess hall, which was currently empty.

"Shepard-Commander, doesn't your computer have extranet access?" Legion inquired.

"I don't need anyone else monitoring what I'm looking at," Shepard muttered. No, the last thing she wanted was anyone tracing a search on "turian sexual relations" to her computer, and she could think of at least one person named Jeff who would take great delight in snooping that way. Joker and his cyber-girlfriend, the Cerberus AI. Shepard had told Garrus she'd keep her interest in him concealed.

But she needed some answers.

"Is it classified?" Legion persisted.

Shepard rolled her eyes. "Yes, Legion, it's classified."

"I understand. This unit will seek new data elsewhere."

Finally. The geth walked to the door, but it hesitated in the doorway and turned back to Shepard. Its faceplates tilted inquisitively. "Shepard-Commander, this unit is confused at the transmissions between Tali vas Normandy and Kal'Reegar."

Shepard planted her face in her palm. "Legion, Tali will kill you if she catches you spying on her private mail." What the hell was with this ship and its personnel?

"This unit only wishes to understand more about its creators."

Shepard held her tongue. Was her idea too cruel? Too unfair? No. Mordin didn't get to give Miranda and Jacob any sex advice. The salarian needed something to keep him entertained…

"Why don't you ask Mordin?" Shepard said.

"Thank you, Shepard-Commander. We will."

As Legion left, Shepard found herself secretly wishing to be a fly on the wall when Mordin taught the geth about quarian birds and…well, whatever quarians had on their insect-free world that did the job of bees.

But right now, Shepard had her own birds to be concerned about. And turian bees.

She typed "turian sexual relations" into the search engine and wondered, briefly, what Joker and EDI would think when they invariably discovered what Zaeed's computer had been looking at. Morbidly curious, Shepard clicked on the machine's search history.

Babes and Guns

Asari Sluts Gone Wild

Sexy, Sexy Firearms

Krogasm – They're Big, They're Hot and They're Gunning For You

If anything, "Turian Sexual Relations" was going to look downright tame on that list.

Shepard felt a little embarrassed as she discovered an article by women's magazine _Galactopolitan_. In public, she always made fun of the magazine that focused on fashion, sex, and celebrity. In private, though—well, a girl with an absentee mother had to learn about female things _somehow_.

Shepard clicked and began reading a racy article about human women who'd had sexual relationships with turians.

_Turian relationships typically comprise a dominant and subordinate partner…usually these roles parallel the turians' social ranks, although some high-ranking turians find it comforting and relaxing to play the subordinate role with their mates…Partners of equal social standing spar to determine who is dominant…a human should expect to take part in these dominance games, it's all part of loving a turian._

Garrus had never asked her to fight, but that certainly explained his constant deferring to her. He'd clearly judged her the dominant partner because she was his commander. She found it vaguely unsettling; she'd always thought partners should be equals. The fact that Garrus might not even _want _that reminded her that she couldn't assume his desires would be the same as a human man's.

And on that note…

_Traditionally, the dominant partner is on top during mating. Switching this position—so that the subordinate is on top and the dominant is on bottom—is considered deviant and kinky, as it implies the subordinate has thrashed the dominant in combat. An example would be…_

Shepard already knew an example. The goddamn missionary position.

Curious now, Shepard searched the article to see what it had to say about doggy-style. If Garrus thought it was degrading and perverse to let her be on the bottom, what the hell did he think it meant to have her down on all fours?

_In relationships with a female dominant partner, the male enjoys mating her from behind. In this position he can caress all her erogenous zones, both as foreplay and as a means of making sex even more pleasurable for his mate…the subordinate male takes pride in how often he can bring his mate to climax. Although he is atop her, his every move is at her command—she speaks and he obeys…_

Shepard realized her jaw was hanging open. Oh, shit, that paragraph was turning her on _big time_. She'd had no idea…Garrus had basically offered to be her sex slave and she'd told him no damn way was she putting her ass in the air? _Shit! _She had to find him, find him right the hell now and tell him she'd gotten over her issues and yes, she'd love to try it his way, yes _please_.

To hell with this waiting business. They'd had one little slip-up in the Hammerhead already; why not two? Just enough for Shepard to find out how it would feel to take Garrus up on his offer…what could be the harm…

Shepard shut down Zaeed's computer, staggered to her feet and began making her way across the room, her knees already weak from imagining Garrus' tongue on the back of her neck, her spine against his chest, his hands on her breasts and his concave hips cradling her butt while they….

Suddenly Shepard heard an audio feed from Zaeed's surveillance camera. "I'm worried about Shepard," Kasumi was saying.

The sound of her own name shocked Shepard out of her X-rated fantasy. She felt like a voyeur as she braced her hands on the table in front of the surveillance screen and watch Kasumi and Kelly take seats in the mess hall, but hell, if they were talking about her then she had a right to be informed, didn't she?

"She's been irritable lately. Do you think she's fighting with Garrus?" Kasumi said speculatively.

"Garrus?" Kelly replied with a frown.

Kasumi blinked. "I thought the relationship between Shepard and Vakarian was this ship's second-worst-kept secret. You know, right after the one about Jacob and Miranda." She glanced slyly at Kelly. "Miranda really doesn't appreciate what she's got there."

Kelly snorted. "Everyone knows about Jacob and Miranda's eternal love except for Jacob and Miranda themselves—I think they missed the memo. But Shepard and Garrus?" She wrinkled her nose. "I know for a fact that Garrus doesn't like humans that way."

"How do I put this…perhaps it's just you who aren't his type?"

Kelly shook her head. "No way. Have you seen Shepard's psychological profile?"

"Aren't those supposed to be confidential?" Kasumi teased.

"Yes, but _your _profile says that locking something up is the best way to get you to take a look at it."

Kasumi laughed. "Guilty as charged, but no, I haven't read the dossiers. Shepard has put some very good encryption on those files."

"So, only a matter of time then."

"Exactly!"

"Well, let me save you some trouble. Garrus doesn't fit Shepard's modus operandi. She likes casual, short-term relationships with human men."

"Casual gets old after a while. Shepard and Garrus have been close for quite some time. Maybe she's looking to settle down."

Kelly snorted. "Then she'd better not do it with a turian."

Shepard felt her stomach slowly turn over.

Kasumi raised her eyebrows. "Oh, really? How come?"

Shepard knew she was about to hear something she didn't want to know, and yet she couldn't help listening to what Kelly had to say.

Yeoman Chambers gawked at the thief. "You don't know about turians and sex?"

Kasumi shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "Never had occasion to take interest. My own tastes are strictly for the human."

Kelly smiled, apparently pleased at the ability to show off her specialist knowledge. "Turians have very different approaches to sex, marriage, and love than humans do. Turian society is very big on both personal responsibility and personal freedom. Turians are free to do whatever they please so long as it doesn't affect their ability to do their duties. So there's a lot of casual sex, a lot of sexual experimentation, and that doesn't stop after they get married."

Kelly took a drink and continued. "Marriage is a social obligation involving a ceremonial union of two clans and a duty to have and support a family. The turian language hasn't got a word for "slut," or a word for "homewrecker," but they've got twelve different epithets to describe a deadbeat who doesn't support his family. That goes to show you where their priorities are. Extramarital affairs are only a problem if turians spends so much time with their lovers that they neglect to support their families financially, maintain their home compounds, raise their children, and keep good working relationships with their spouses."

"And affairs don't cause poor, er, working relationships?"

"Not when both partners are having them."

"Oh. Oh my," Kasumi said, for once speechless.

"Yes. And given the Commander's history of abandonment issues, I can't imagine her being content as a turian's mistress. Not even one as devoted as Garrus."

Shepard's hands clenched into fists, and she was about to blurt out that she did _not _have abandonment issues when she realized that Kelly couldn't hear her here in Zaeed's room, and yes, in fact, she did. Instead she closed her eyes and swore at Garrus, at his sick adoration of his fucking _duty_ and at whatever twisted impulse had turned it to sexual attraction somewhere along the line, and at whatever sadistic god had seen it fit to make Garrus a turian and not a human man who could return her affection with a human sort of love.

She'd never deserved a human's love.

Onscreen, Kasumi was inquiring as to whether or not it was possible for Garrus to marry Shepard.

"Turian society would never permit a traditional turian marriage with an interspecies couple. They could do it at a justice of the peace on the Citadel, I suppose, but I still don't think she'd be happy with an open relationship," Kelly said, and Shepard almost threw up right there on the floor, she felt so ill. Yeoman Chamber's words drifted through her head, echoing, meaningless. "Though Garrus is pretty reckless when he gets an idea into his head. I suppose it's possible—assuming he really does like her that way—that he might have gone so far as to gamble his entire heart and soul on…"

Shepard turned off the security camera. She couldn't take any more of this. She couldn't stand to listen while her heart shattered.

_Shit_. She loved him. She _loved_ him, that turian bastard, someone too different from her to ever be able to love her back.

In the privacy of Zaeed's quarters, Shepard hung her head and wept.


	2. Chapter 2: Lost Together

**Author's Note:**

Well, I think I have a naming convention down for the chapters of this fic, and at this rate we'll have a music CD before this story's through. This chapter is named for a song by Blue Rodeo, and again I encourage folks to look up the lyrics and give it a listen.

I'd like to thank everyone who's supported this story so far, and hope you all enjoy what's to come, particularly as I'm trying to do a slightly different take on certain events that I've seen in other stories.

Thanks for reading.

**Closer to Home**

**Chapter the Second: Lost Together**

Shepard laid on her bunk, hands behind her head, and thought about the night before the mission on Ilos. They'd been hot on Saren's heels, with the Normandy on her way to a final confrontation, and tensions running higher than ever in the absence of anything to do but sit and wait for the endgame to commence. Then, as now, Shepard had retreated to her cabin and flopped down on her bed, staring at her ceiling, wondering what to do with herself.

_In the hours before Ilos:_

There had been a time, not so long ago, when Commander Shepard had been looking forward to a few hours of privacy. It would have been an ideal time for her to get to know Kaiden very, very well. Here, safely locked in her cabin, the lights low, the ship speeding through the void, and all of her crew busy settling their affairs in anticipation for the coming battle—here, she would have shared pleasure with Kaiden, and going to war, she would have known that even if she had no family or close friends, she had at least one person who cared for her, one person she could treasure in return.

And then, Virmire.

Logically, Shepard knew she'd made the right decision. Kaiden and the salarians had been acting as decoys. Rushing off to relieve them would have negated the whole reason for placing decoys in the first place. The bomb had needed to be protected. Shepard felt that no matter what she'd done, someone would have died. This way, at least the mission had been successful. This way, she'd done her best...

But it meant that she was alone now, rattling around her cabin, trying desperately to think of someone, anyone who would miss the woman under the Commander Shepard armour and failing to come up with any names. The blue lace lingerie she'd bought and saved for this location sat unworn in the bottom of her underwear drawer.

Then there was a knock at her door.

She ignored it, feeling dark thoughts gathering around her in preparation for a storm, but the knock came again, persistent.

"Commander?" The flanged voice was distinctive.

She called through the door, "What is it, Garrus?" and hoped she didn't sound too harsh. The idealistic young turian didn't deserve to be the target of her attempts to distract herself from her depression by picking a fight instead.

"Can you come to the Mako with me? It's important."

Shepard cursed as she got up from the bed, but as she walked to the door she realized that she was pathetically grateful for the distraction.

The turian, his mandibles flickering, gestured for her to come quickly. He seemed unusually agitated, and Shepard hoped the Mako wasn't critically damaged somehow.

Garrus didn't bother hesitating at the vehicle's exterior. He walked right up the open hatch and inside. Shepard followed, with visions of damaged consoles and inaccurate instruments dancing in her head.

Vakarian didn't get as far as the driver's seat. He picked up a thermos, fumbled with the lid, poured the contents into a mug and shoved it at her. "For you."

Shepard stared down into the mug with its sweet-smelling liquid. "Garrus, what is this?"

"Hot chocolate." He glanced at the thermos. "Unless Ashley was lying to me."

_Hot chocolate_. Shepard sat in one of the crew chairs, only vaguely noticing that Garrus had closed the hatch behind them. Vakarian took the chair beside her, now pouring something from another thermos. This one contained a syrupy substance in a vile shade of maroon, but Garrus seemed to enjoy it as he slurped it out of his own mug.

"So is the Mako broken or not?" The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. The silence had been...companionable. Almost pleasant. The drink was warm and tasty, and maybe if she'd kept her mouth shut, she could have had a few minutes of peace.

"Oh, no, Commander, the Mako's not broken. It's ready when we are."

"Then what's the big important thing you had to haul me out here to tell me?"

"I don't need to tell you anything, Commander." He seemed flustered.

Shepard narrowed her eyes. "Garrus, don't play games with me." She let a warning note creep into her voice, and watched his visible eye widen ever so slightly.

"Shepard, what I said was that it was important for you to come here. And it is." His mandibles fluttered. "I...er...I apologize if I'm out of line, but...I didn't think it was good for you to sit in there alone right now."

She was shocked because he was right, absolutely right, and though she didn't want to say so, she'd needed someone. And here was Garrus, of all people. "I...how did you know?"

His eyes fell to the floor. "I've been watching your back." Shepard had the vague suspicion that he wasn't just talking about missions. His next words confirmed it. "I know you were fond of Alenko, and I know his loss has hurt you. On a...personal level. If you were a turian, I wouldn't have hesitated to support you, but you're not and so I...I'm not sure how to go about it, so I asked Williams, and she said hot chocolate is a comfort food and..." His mouth closed. "I should stop talking now, shouldn't I?" He set his drink down on the floor, as though using it as an excuse to duck and hide from her eyes for a few moments.

Good God, he seemed almost shy. And the gesture had been sweet.

She'd initially been rather guarded about letting Garrus on her crew, but after a long lecture and dressing-down, she'd welcomed him aboard. She needed all the help she could get against Saren, and Vakarian, unlike so many other people, at least understood that the turian Spectre was crooked and needed to be stopped. She just hadn't wanted to deal with any of the bullshit she'd heard about turians, how they were xenophobic where humans were concerned, and aggressive, and stubborn, and thought they were hot shit...

She'd been rather surprised, then, to find that Garrus was not only friendly and talkative, but that he had a wicked sense of humour and a genuine interest in what she had to say. She could debate with him, and he was sharp enough to challenge her; he knew when to voice his concerns, and when to keep silent. She'd expected to get a surly cop stalking about the ship complaining that the Normandy didn't operate like the turian military; instead she got a clever, reliable crewmate who spent his spare time tinkering with the Mako.

Instead she'd gotten a friend.

"This was really nice of you, Garrus," she said quietly.

"I just wanted you to know," he replied, his mandibles flaring, "I'll always be there if you need me." Garrus reached out his hand and lightly curled his fingers around Shepard's.

Shepard squeezed, touched by the simple gesture, only to realize that his armoured gauntlet was hard and unyielding. The words were out of her mouth before she could think better of them. "Hey, Garrus, do you ever take your gloves off?"

Wordlessly, he withdrew his hand, opened some snaps and seals on his armour, pulled off the gauntlet, and returned his hand to its original position.

She'd never seen a turian's bare hand before, she realized. Two large talons and a thumb, dusted with scales on top, warm and leathery on the bottom, and tipped with big black claws that had been clipped short and filed smooth. It was so inhuman that she couldn't help but stare a little.

"Is this weird?" Garrus blurted.

Shepard raised her glance from their tangled fingers to Garrus' eyes. "Is what weird?"

"This." He inclined his head to indicate their hands. "Is it weird?"

Shepard thought for a moment. Once she got over the fact that his hand looked kind of lizardy, but felt warm and nice... "No, I don't think so." She let her index finger stroke the side of his hand, marveling at the little ridged scales.

"Good." Garrus sat back in his chair, relieved.

And they talked. Mostly, they talked about Garrus, and Shepard encouraged him to reapply for Spectre training once the business with Saren was concluded. Shepard felt safer that way. She didn't want to think about the empty pit that was her childhood, or the uncertainty that was her future. She wanted to laugh and joke with her friend. Just once. Just once she wanted a goddamn bit of normal.

"Hey, when you go off to Spectre training, you'll write me, right?"

"Of course." He looked shy again. "I know you're my Commander and that humans do things a little differently but...I'd like to think that we're friends. Am I overstepping?"

Shepard smiled. Turians. They just had to militarize everything. "I'd like that," she said, squeezing his hand again. "Friends..."

"Nothing more and nothing less," they said together, and laughed.

#

Garrus lay on his bed, his talons laced behind his fringe, as he stared at the ceiling and thought about those precious hours before Ilos.

Was that it? Had that been the point of no return—when he'd first dared step past the boundaries of casual friendship and insert himself into Shepard's personal life?

No. It couldn't have been. A thermos of hot chocolate surely couldn't have meant a life sentence. He'd _left _the Normandy after that mission, for all the Spirits' sake, left for Spectre training. If he'd loved her then, he wouldn't have gone—would he?

He couldn't remember now why he'd bombed out of Spectre training. He'd been doing so well at first; he'd been the best in his class by far. There were too many alcohol-soaked holes in his memories for him to tell if he'd faltered only after he'd heard about the Normandy's crash, or if he'd started slipping before that as her absence ate away at his soul. He didn't…he just didn't know. He'd likely never know.

What he _did_ know was the crushing devastation upon realizing that she'd needed him and _he hadn't been there_. He'd given her his word before Ilos and he'd broken it. He'd had no fucking business being on the Citadel when his place was at her side.

There'd been one dark night in his quarters on the Citadel, his pistol in one hand, a bottle of Palavan ale in the other. Two flavours—harsh steel, bitter ale. One choice. To wake up tomorrow, hung over, sick…or to never wake up at all.

Garrus had chosen the alcohol then, and again the next night, until he realized that he could not sleep without it. He needed it to hold the nightmares at bay. He could either take the temporary escape, or he'd take the permanent one—one shot to make it all go away. His grades faltered, his performance slid, and his ranking in Spectre training entered a spin from which there was no recovery. Somehow he'd still been surprised when he found himself hauled in front of a psychologist, who informed him in an emotionless voice that he was too mentally unstable to qualify as a Council Spectre, now or ever. And he, equally numb, had indicated that he understood, packed his bag, and left.

He rented a room and spent a few days wandering around in a semi-coherent haze, surfacing only to sober up for Shepard's funeral. After that, though—he hadn't bothered to restrain his drinking after that. He remembered pounding back glass after glass at the Dark Star and then…nothing. His memory was a blur until he woke up on Omega, more than a month later. The trip from the Citadel to Omega had been obliterated from his mind; he could not have said what ship he had traveled on, who with, or how long the journey had taken.

Lantar Sidonis had pulled him out of his hole, and together they'd built a team and started taking back Omega, one thug at a time. It had helped to be making a real difference as opposed to the constant simulations of Spectre training. Spectre training had been challenging, but when it came right down to it, it had all been fake. On Omega, his actions had truly counted.

He hadn't really been _okay_—he still crept into a bottle every now and then—but his team had held him together for the most part, and he'd been surviving right up until Sidonis had betrayed them.

Shepard would never have made such a mistake.

At last he had chosen to abandon the alcohol and die by the gun. But he was Garrus Vakarian and he would not pull the trigger on himself. He would make Omega's mercs do it for him. He would take as many as he could down with him when he went.

And then…

_Shepard._

How had he not known the full extent of his fall until she had returned to save his soul?

#

Shepard had been savouring those memories of her and Garrus in the Mako on the way to Ilos—and their recent and much more explicit encore in the Hammerhead—as a way of avoiding having to think about what she'd learned about the nature of turian relationships.

_Open relationships—the rule, not the exception._

_Marriage is a social duty. To build an alliance, raise children, run a home._

For Garrus, that meant marriage to another turian.

Shepard took a deep breath. They could make this work. He'd said he'd always be here when she needed him, right? And as long as the Reapers were out there, she needed him. Would it be so bad if he eventually started a family back on Palaven or somewhere? She'd send him off twice a year to see his wife, say hi to his kids, but the rest of the time he'd be here, at her side where he belonged….

Shit, who was she kidding?

Garrus wasn't the kind of person who'd abandon his children for someone else to raise. And Shepard knew she'd completely lose her mind to be sitting here alone in her cabin thinking about Garrus in bed with his future wife.

No, that wouldn't work at all, and…

_And those are your options, Shepard. You share him, or you let him go._

Shepard lay there and let the tears stream silently from the corners of her eyes.

_Do you love him enough to do the unselfish thing here? Do you love him enough to accept him as he is—knowing damn well he's not human, and you can't expect him to be?_

God help her, she didn't know.

#

Garrus didn't want to think about Omega right now. Instead, he let his mind replay what had happened since that night in the main battery.

He and Shepard had fallen back into their "old-war-buddies" rhythm, which had been comforting, but no longer easy. It had been a relief to learn that the new sexual aspect to their relationship hadn't eclipsed their ability to be friends; there had been times when Garrus was able to stop thinking about love and sex and the future and just enjoy being with Shepard, laughing, joking, trying to one-up each other at shooting or storytelling, as though nothing had changed since the old days chasing Saren.

Other times, though—particularly when they were alone—Garrus had found himself reaching out to touch her, catching himself just in time. Lately, he half expected to hear complaints about the showers running out of cold water, from all the cold showers he'd taken. He slept restlessly, his body and soul aching from her absence, fighting the urge to slink up to her cabin and hold her while she dreamed.

And then there was that little accident in the Hammerhead…

Garrus hadn't had any ulterior motives when he asked Shepard to check out his work on the Hammerhead. The vehicle had picked up some damage; he'd fixed it, and done some upgrades while he was at it, and it was perfectly reasonable to run the changes past the commanding officer. Really, the whole thing had been her fault…she'd brought drinks in thermoses, a rich tisane for him, hot chocolate for her.

After the inspection, they'd sat down inside the Hammerhead, sipping their drinks, and the whole time he'd been thinking about Ilos and the Mako with the scent of chocolate and Shepard in his nostrils. Shepard must have been thinking about it too; she'd curled her fingers around his talons and rested her head on his shoulder…

The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back on the floor of the Hammerhead, his armour gone, the metal cold against his back, Shepard warm on his chest…

She'd been embarrassed afterwards. He'd shouldered half the blame, telling her it took two as he helped her back into her armour, though really she'd had him the second she'd opened those thermoses. And at the time he hadn't been sorry. She'd felt so _good_. She'd looked so happy, and he'd been so proud of himself, that he'd been the one to please her that way.

But in the last few days, Shepard had recoiled from him. Forget flirting—she wasn't talking to him at all any more. He'd barely even seen her, and he couldn't shake the idea that she was avoiding him.

And the loneliness was tearing his guts out. Had the encounter in the Hammerhead been a test, and had he failed? Could Shepard possibly be so cruel?

His father's words echoed once again in his head. _There's nothing more pathetic than a turian in love. _It had taken him until now to realize just _how _devastating the feeling could be.

He'd do almost anything for just a moment's peace, just a little quality sleep that didn't end with nightmares about the Normandy crashing, about Shepard dying in his arms, or those ones where Shepard walked away from him arm in arm with—he'd had countless iterations of this dream with pretty much every crew member taking a turn in the supporting role. Shepard and Thane. Shepard and Jacob. Shepard and Kelly. Shepard and Liara. Hell, even Shepard and Legion. He knew that was stupid for multiple reasons and yet the idea of Shepard swearing her undying love to the entire geth collective made him feel sick instead of bringing him to laughter as it ought to.

He looked at the bottle of liquor and felt his stomach contract. He could already taste it.

The ghost of ale teased his tongue, making his mouth water and his belly burn. All he had to do was open that bottle and he'd sleep deeply tonight. Crawl in there and let himself forget that he was exposed on an open battlefield, under fire from all sides. Drink himself into an oblivion where he'd forget that Shepard wasn't next to him right now.

_No_.

_You know what happens if you open that bottle. You go in and you don't come out again._

He was _not _going to go on another drinking spree here on the Normandy. He was past caring what his crewmates thought of him, but he would _not _do that while he still might have a chance to make things right with Shepard.

The silence in his room was oppressive, smothering. The ale glowed softly in the dimness. He could feel the crave chewing at the back of his brain.

Hands shaking, he activated his commlink.

"Shepard?"

#

Her comm chimed in the silence. Shepard ignored it, but when it kept chiming, over and over, she finally picked it up.

"Shepard." A pause. "Shepard, I need help."

It was Garrus, but Garrus as she'd never heard him before. His words were slurred, a spill of desperate emotion.

"Where are you?" she asked.  
"My quarters."

She answered automatically. "I'll be there."

Shepard was already in the elevator before she realized that this might be a bad idea. She wiped at her face with the corner of her sleeve to dry away her tears. She really wasn't sure she could face him with her emotions in such upheaval. Hell, she'd been avoiding him for days just so that she didn't have to risk busting out crying, or throwing something at him, or some other immature and very un-Shepardlike emotional outburst spurred by the fact that she wanted Garrus to be her…

(husband)

…boyfriend and that kind of exclusive sexual relationship wasn't in a turian's nature.

She'd been hoping to come to some sort of a solution before she confronted him, and now here she was on her way to his quarters, his quarters for God's sake, where they'd first had sex. This was a bad, bad idea.

But he needed her.

And no matter what it did to her, she couldn't let him down.

Shepard got off the elevator, ignoring the crew as she walked down the hall to Garrus' door. She didn't bother to knock. She eased the door open and took a peek inside.

Garrus sat on his bed, back to the door, staring up at that bottle of Palaven ale on his shelf. It looked as though he were meditating on it, trying to divine some vision of the future in the softly glowing liquid.

His room was clean again, and when his possessions were ordered the way they were now, it was clear to Shepard just how little he had: a few undersuits and his one set of civilian clothes, hanging in his closet; his sniper rifle and some equipment to care for it; a handful of items he'd received while he was on board, like a datapad, a mug, and a shower bag; and that single bottle of ale. On their first mission together he'd brought a bunch of stuff with him—vid discs, a music player, a whole library of information on police tactics and turian military units. His entertainments were gone now. The new Garrus was a harder, colder man who'd left Omega with nothing but the clothes on his back and the weapon in his hands.

Shepard looked around the room again. So much of what was in here now was from the Normandy's stores. What had he bought for himself since Omega? Only the suit he'd worn to see her, the wine he'd brought with him…and the ale that he'd left here, for a reason she couldn't understand, because he couldn't drink human liquor and he couldn't have shared the wine with her.

"Shepard, if that's you…"

His voice seemed unusually loud in the stillness.

"Please get in here, shut the door, and talk me out of this."

_Please_. For some reason he could never tell her to do anything. And yet, though it was framed as a request, she could hear the need in his voice. She stepped into the room, locked the door, and walked to his side. She sat next to him on the bed, close enough to feel his warmth, not quite close enough to touch him.

"What are we looking at?" She tried to grin and failed.

He stretched out a talon and pointed at the ale. "Don't let me drink that."

She studied it again and frowned. "How come?"

"If I open it, I won't stop." He hung his head. "I'm sorry to show you this weakness, Shepard, but I suppose you ought to know."

"What? You mean you're…"

"I think…no. I'm an alcoholic, Shepard."

Again automatically, she extended her hand and curled her fingers around his talon. He squeezed her hand gratefully and they sat there, hand in hand.

How could she not have known? How could something like that have happened to her best friend and she'd completely missed it? God, she'd never seen any indications of it. The only memories she had of Garrus and booze were in the old days on the Citadel, and then he'd been laughing, happy, and fine the next morning. This didn't make sense.

"I remember you having drinks on the Citadel," she said slowly, confused.

"Yes, well, that was before you died." His voice was flat.

Shepard felt as though she'd been punched in the gut.

It was a few moments before she could speak. "I've been really selfish, haven't I?" she whispered. She kept her eyes on the ale. She didn't dare look at him. "I've been avoiding you because I'm trying to wrap my head around a problem and some, um, solutions, and I've hurt you."

"I'm all right." He turned his head to her, she glanced at him, and he gave her a weak grin. "Heh. I suppose we both know a lie when we hear one."

"You missed me," Shepard whispered. "When I…I died." She licked her lips and let her thoughts spill out, uncensored. "I remember hauling Joker to safety. I remember getting sucked out of the Normandy and then…I remember waking up in Cerberus' lab. I…I like to think I went right from the wreck of the Normandy to meeting Jacob and Miranda. Like I was just knocked out, or sleeping, or something. It's easier that way." She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again. "But that's not true. I died. I fucking _died_. I died like my father died and then they brought me back." She shook her head. "They didn't bring my father back. They didn't bring Kaiden back. But they brought me back." She reached out and caressed the cold cybernetics that laced his jaw. "And they brought you back."

"I wasn't dead."

"You were mostly dead." She swallowed hard. "You should be dead."

He tilted his head. "Would you miss me?"

"Garrus, that's a stupid question." She knew she sounded condescending, but didn't know how to change it. She squeezed his hand, hoping he could interpret the emotion behind her words. "Damn straight I'd miss the only person who'd ever miss me," she said, her voice thick. "I've never had anybody miss me before."

Garrus shook his head. "I was at your funeral. Lots of people missed you."

"No, lots of people missed Commander fucking Shepard. Nobody missed _me_. You know, the person I am when the uniform comes off. Nobody even _knows_ me except for a smartass turian who brought me hot chocolate in the Mako…"

Oh, shit, she was crying again.

Garrus wrapped his arm around her. "Let me tell you something."

#

_I remember your funeral. Tali crying, her facemask making it impossible for her to wipe away the tears. Joker, crushed under a burden of guilt, feeling you had traded your life for his. Wrex, showing grief as only a krogan could, by smashing in walls and raining down curses on those responsible. Ashley, swallowing her latent xenophobia and taking Wrex by the arm, calming him down, directing his rage into a safe outlet—gaining comfort herself by taking charge of a problem and solving it. Liara, stewing in silent fury, her expression far too much like her mother's had once been._

_After the service they all joined together, holding each other, comforting one another. I wanted to join them. I couldn't._

_Throughout the service I had stood vigil at the side of an empty coffin. I was your honour guard. I spent that whole damned service not moving, not weeping, not making a sound, and the whole time I stood there looking like a statue on the outside, I was trying to come to terms with the gaping chasm inside me._

_I'd lost people in battle before. I knew what it meant to grieve. I knew what loss felt like, and losing you felt different. Losing a comrade leaves you wondering how the world can keep on turning without them._

_Losing you felt like…like all the stars had gone out._

_When I was finally able to move, I walked past the group. Tali told me nobody saw me go; they only noticed that I was gone. And that was the last they saw of me until you found me on Omega._

_What they didn't know was that I'd washed out of Spectre training the week before. They didn't know I'd been drinking too much. They didn't know what I felt and I…I couldn't tell them. Do you know what I mean, Shepard? When your brain tells you they're your friends and of course you can trust them, but your heart's already in retreat. When you're hurting so much you have no choice but to lie low where nothing can find you, because you're at your limits and you can't survive any more. _

_I went to the Dark Star and crawled inside a bottle and woke up a month later on Omega._

_And I shouldn't be telling you this, but let's be honest…in this screwed-up galaxy you're the only person I have left._

#

By the end of his story, she was sitting in his lap and they were both clinging to each other, clinging tightly as though they'd both found the only safe haven in a raging sea of insanity. Which, Shepard admitted, she probably had.

For a while nothing was said. They both needed each other's warmth far more than they needed words.

At long last, Shepard broke the silence. "Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"If you're an alcoholic, why do you keep that bottle of ale in your quarters? I mean, I've seen that thing a few times now. Seems to me it's a bad idea to keep temptation so close at hand."

Garrus laughed weakly. "I was saving it for after the fight against the Collectors."

Shepard frowned, confused. "But you haven't opened it."

"You didn't die again."

Shepard felt her guts roll over.

"Shepard, if you'd died on that mission, that bottle of ale would have been the only thing between me and a bullet through my own skull." He shook his head. "I really shouldn't be telling you this. And I can't lie to you."

"Oh God, Garrus."

"I know." His hand gripped hers tightly. "I can't talk about it because my best friend and my lover and the only person I trust are all the same person and it scares the hell out of me."

"I know." She leaned against him, feeling dazed, beginning to realize that they were both in a dark place, but they were in it together.

If they stayed together, they might be okay.

"Garrus?"

"Hm?"

"I want to tell you something." Shepard squeezed his hand for strength and comfort. "I want to tell you that…" She drew in a ragged breath. "I'll always be there when you need me."

Garrus' mandibles clattered. "Shepard…" He seemed speechless. Awed? Concerned? She couldn't tell. She watched him struggle to speak for a few moments before he finally coughed out coherent words. "Shepard, you don't know what you're saying."

"I know exactly what I'm saying. I haven't gotten attached to very many people in my life, and out of all of them you're the only one who hasn't died or walked out on me. Not even when I deserve it."

And, God, she did deserve it after how she'd ignored him the last few days.

"Walked out?" Garrus repeated, a question on his lips and a fury in his eyes.

"You know how my profile says I was orphaned?"

He nodded.

"That's not exactly true."

Garrus' mandibles flared in surprise as his arms tightened around her. She took a deep breath, laid her head on his shoulder and told him everything. She shivered against his chest, remembering that little apartment and how it had felt to be seven years old and hungry and cold and so desperately alone, and she let him protect her as she went back in time and faced her demons head-on.

"You've never heard from her since?"

Shepard shook her head. "Logically…" Her voice hitched. She had to swallow and try again. "Logically, I know my mom was probably suffering from some kind of mental illness, or maybe she had run out of money and just didn't know what to do. Emotionally, though…" She sniffed. "I can't help but feeling that even growing up into Commander Fucking Shepard wasn't enough to make my mom love me again."

"I'll never leave you," he swore, his unvisored eye a single point of blue fire. "Never again."

Even knowing what she knew about turians and relationships, she believed him. She knew without a doubt that to the full extent of his ability, he'd be there for her.

"Are you…" Shepard swallowed. "Do you have any plans for what you want to do next? I mean, we'll be docking at the Citadel tomorrow and we'll be there for a few days, but after that…are you going to be aboard?"

"The galaxy's not safe yet," Garrus replied, nuzzling her gently. "It seems to me we still have work to do." He tilted his face and smiled. "You still need me, right?"

She felt a flood of relief. His words didn't mean he wouldn't eventually leave, back to C-Sec or Palaven or some other path that took him away from her, but for the foreseeable future, she'd have her best friend.

Her lover.

"Yes," she whispered. "I need you."

"When we're on the Citadel," he said, "will you go somewhere with me?"

Shepard blinked. "What did you have in mind?"

"A surprise." He tilted his head, and added softly, "Something I think will explain how I feel. Then we can decide where to go from there."

She took a deep breath. "We have to find a way to make this work," she said, her voice shaking. "I…we're no good without each other, are we, Garrus?"

"We're not," he agreed quietly.

"Please tell me that no matter what…no matter what happens with…you know, sex and marriage and stuff…." God, now she was the one who was babbling awkwardly. "Please tell me we'll always be friends." She drew a deep breath. "I know you said you'd always be there for me but…I'm human, and humans need to hear the words sometimes. To confirm what we already know."

"Oh," he said quietly. He nuzzled her behind the ear and murmured her name. "You are the most important person in my life. I would cut out my own heart before I hurt you. I would lay down my life to defend you. And no matter what you might decide to do in the future, all you ever have to do is ask, and I'll be there." His tongue caressed her cheek. "Like that?"

She nodded, although it wasn't entirely true. She _hadn't _already known that, not really. Shepard shivered, and this time, not from cold.

#

"Will you stay?" He quivered, not wanting to release her.

She looked at him, her expression unfathomable, and he wondered if she'd taken his request the wrong way.

"I'm not talking about sex tonight," he clarified. "I'm talking about being with you."

"I'd…" Her voice caught. "I'd really like that." Shepard ran her hand along his jaw, on the unscarred side where he could feel her touch, and then she smiled. "But you have to take this off." She gently removed his heads-up display visor and set it on his end table.

He blinked, still trying to get used to the view without his visor. He felt so vulnerable, as though anything could sneak up on him now.

But Shepard was holding him, and if he wanted to think about trouble, he could think about her…visor or no visor, he'd never seen her coming.

Briefly, his mind danced over what he'd learned about humans on the extranet today. How they fell in and out of love so quickly, and how hard it would be for him to explain the turian way of things to a species with transient affections. He couldn't fathom the mentality of a people that could fall _out_ of love, even though he knew most species could.

_But Shepard isn't like most humans. She's their exception. Their very best._

He didn't know if he was saying that because it was true or because he needed it to be real, but for tonight he didn't want to dwell on it any longer. He'd lost his desire for liquor. He had everything he truly craved right here in his arms.

"I'll be right back," he murmured, untangling himself reluctantly just long enough to go to his closet and retrieve his robe. He changed quickly, facing the wall, not wanting to think about whether or not Shepard was watching him change. This wasn't a night for sex. He knew they were good at that. It was _love_ that needed sorting out now.

When he turned back around, Shepard had removed her jacket, her pants, and her bra as well. The clothing lay in a heap on the floor. She was sitting on his bed in panties—something practical yet soft in blue cotton—and an undershirt, and though the sexual bits were all covered, she still looked strangely soft, and feminine, and very inviting.

There were no more words to be said. Shepard slid under his covers, and he joined her, tucking himself against her, wrapping his arm around her. She closed her eyes and sighed, nuzzling into his neck, and in this moment everything in his screwed-up universe fell into sudden and perfect order. He had only a few seconds to savour the warmth of her skin and the scent of her hair before he fell into a deep, deep sleep, and he was not sure if he dreamed Shepard's voice murmuring four words into the silence between their breaths.

"I love you, Garrus."


	3. Chapter 3: Desperate Dreams

**Author's Note: **Thanks again to everyone who's supported this story and the amazing editorial talents of Morgan of Salerone.

This story marks the debut of a major OC, so: Machaera Perihelion is my own character; do not borrow without permission.

This chapter's title taken from "Desperate Dreams" by Survivor—warning, contains The Eighties.

**Closer to Home **

Chapter 3: Desperate Dreams

Garrus looked up from his datapad and watched the docking clamps descend on the sides of the Normandy with a feeling of dread. The time for him to come clean with Shepard was approaching far, far too quickly and truth be told, he wasn't very good at this emotional stuff.

He suspected it went back to his childhood, where any expression of excess emotion—exuberance, anger, sorrow, you name it—was met by a cuff upside the head from his father. And Spirits help him if he failed to master his self-control before he reacted to the blow. When he was little, a smack had always made him cry, and crying, without fail, resulted in another stinging slap on his opposite cheek and a long lecture about what it meant to be a good turian and a worthy son. Discipline. Duty. Temperance. They were the three virtues as far as Bastion Vakarian was concerned.

In his early teens, Garrus had wished he could piss off his father enough to get the old man to beat the crap out of him, just to see Bastion's face when he realized that his own self-control had cracked, but nothing Garrus had said or done had ever produced any more or any less than one or two cuffs and The Lecture.

So Garrus had learned to stuff his excess emotion into a box and brood on it in solitude. Held privately, his feelings became a treasure, the one thing his father couldn't ruin or take away from him. By the time he'd become an adult, he'd developed a strange habit—the more something meant to him, the _less_ he expressed his interest to others. His precious things were not for the general public to sully with their stares or questions; they were his alone, and he guarded them with all possible vigilance.

The idea of _everyone_ knowing how he felt about Shepard terrified him, and that was assuming—a very big assumption—that a human would be able to cope with a turian's affection.

Garrus sighed. Perhaps, if he was lucky, they'd run into an armed maniac, or some gang warfare, or perhaps a bomb plot—some nice, normal situation to help him relax and take his mind off of things.

#

Shepard watched Thane, Jack, Zaeed, Samara, and Grunt pass through Citadel customs and head off on their separate ways. Truth be told, she missed them already. Grunt would be back, she told herself; he was headed to Tuchanka to fulfill his breeding requests. Samara was returning to her duties as a justicar, though she had promised to return if Shepard ever needed her help against the Reapers. Zaeed had loudly announced to her that as Cerberus was no longer paying him, his work here was done. Thane wanted to spend his remaining months with Kolyat. And Jack…

Shepard had always expected Jack to take off at the earliest opportunity. She had not expected the ex-convict to attach herself to Thane.

Miranda, of course, had nothing polite to say about the relationship between Jack and Thane, but Shepard didn't agree with that interpretation. If Jack had been having sex with the drell, she would have already provided the entire ship with far too much information. The fact that Jack had been so quiet where Thane was concerned made Shepard suspect that the relationship wasn't sexual. Her observations had confirmed it—Thane treated Jack like the daughter he'd never had, and Jack, despite her crude front, soaked up the affection.

Shepard found herself wishing, once again, that Thane might have more time left. If nothing else, maybe Jack and Kolyat could develop some kind of friendship to keep themselves together once Thane was gone.

But now Shepard had her own relationship to tend to. Garrus, not very good at farewells, had pleaded some last-minute calibration checks to tend to on the Normandy. As she waited for him, her eyes swept the area and saw nothing but the regular long line of weary travelers, the hassled-looking human customs official, the argumentative turian quarrelling with…

And there, her gaze stopped.

Most turians reminded her of hunting hawks, or eagles if they had enough rank and authority. In the past, she'd privately imagined Garrus as an osprey, perched up on some high outcropping with his sniper rifle, a raptor on the hunt.

This turian, on the other hand, was far more reminiscent of a macaw, resplendent in colourful plumage. She was wrapped in a long, flowing scarlet dress, reminiscent of a kimono, with bright yellow hems on the sleeves, skirt, around the collar, and down the front, tied at the waist with a bright blue sash. A yellow scarf wound around her neck. Incongruously, she wore gauntlets on her hands, with the armour disappearing up under the long, billowing sleeves of the loosely fitting dress. The gauntlets had not stopped her from loading her wrists with countless gold bangles that jingled as she gestured—rather rudely—at the customs official. Even her fringe was adorned with two rows of gold bands ringing each spike. When she turned her head, Shepard realized that one of her spikes had been broken off at the end, and she wondered if the gold bands were intended as decoration or if they were, in fact, holding that spike together.

Shepard had never seen this turian's face-paint pattern before. A red line under each amber-coloured eye descended outward in a sweeping curve over the cheekbones before twisting back where it crossed her upper lip and ended in a tapering point on her chin. The end result resembled a pair of wavy lines down her face. Two smaller lines—one in the corner of each eye—wiggled out and back to the base of her fringe.

And for some unfathomable reason, the voice coming out of Shepard's translator was a bizarre cross between what sounded like a Brooklyn accent and some variation on neo-African patois. "So what am I supposed to do? You won't let me onto the Citadel because you say I'm allegedly a security risk, and you won't let me leave because for some stupid reason I'm on your fucking no-fly list! You either give me clearance to do _something_, or I'm going to camp right here in your lobby, you hear me?"

Shepard shook her head and turned away, but then the colourful turian's next words stopped her in her tracks.

"All I want is to talk to Vakarian."

"I already told you," the hassled customs official said, "that won't be possible."

"Why the hell not?" she growled. "I know he's here. All I want is five fucking minutes to ask him some simple questions."

Shepard felt her eyes narrow defensively. Who was this woman, and what did she want with Garrus? She found herself leaning back against the wall, pretending to be scanning the crowds while watching the colourful turian out of the corner of her eye.

The customs officer appeared to be very close to losing her temper. "Commandant Vakarian is retired," she said, her voice icy. "We're not in the habit of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Ma'am, you can either go through official channels or you can leave."

"Except you won't let me leave because of this no-fly list bullshit! Give me a pass and five minutes with Vakarian, and I'm on my way to Palaven tomorrow." The turian woman gave the official an attempt at an ingratiating smile, though her needle teeth somewhat ruined the effect from a human point of view. "Otherwise I'll be in here being a pain in your ass, and you wouldn't like that, would you?"

"Ma'am, it'll take a few days for us to figure out why your documentation doesn't match. We're working on it as quickly as possible…"

"I'll bet," the turian replied dryly, glancing meaningfully at the huge stacks of paperwork piled up on the counters—and the floor.

The customs officer had the good grace to look sheepish.

"Hey, in the meantime, can I talk to…"

Shepard caught a flash of blue armour in the crowd coming from the docks. She smiled and stepped forward.

"Garrus!"

Someone else had seen him, too. Shepard drew back, startled, as she was cut off by a blur of red and gold. Shepard blinked as her vision settled and she saw the brightly-coloured turian woman flinging her arms around Garrus and giving him a hug, pressing her forehead against his.

Garrus returned the hug somewhat awkwardly and gave her a quick lick on the cheek. "Er…hello. How are you?"

She gave Garrus a smile that was half cajoling, half embarrassed. "In shit. You know, the usual. But never mind _me_, what about _you_?"

Shepard didn't usually think of herself as the jealous type, and logically, she knew that Garrus Vakarian's picture could be found in the dictionary under the word "loyalty." Unfortunately, logic had no effect on her as she watched the two turians nuzzling each other.

Shepard walked up to the them, wishing like hell she'd put on some makeup before leaving the Normandy. "Hey, Garrus. Who's this?"

Garrus glanced down at his armful of turian. "I'd like you to meet Machaera Perihelion. Machaera, this is…"

"Commander Shepard!" the female exclaimed, releasing Garrus, and Shepard braced herself for the next line—what everyone seemed to say upon meeting her these days.

It didn't come. "It's an honour," Machaera said instead, taking Shepard's hand and shaking it vigorously.

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you going to say _I thought you were dead_?"

"You don't look dead to me." She winked. The other woman's incorrigible energy and sardonic sense of humour were strangely appealing, despite the fact that Shepard really didn't like this turian's easy familiarity with Garrus.

Machaera returned her attention to Garrus. "Have you been with Commander Shepard for two whole years, Gar…"

She broke off in mid-sentence when she noticed the scars on the opposite side of Garrus' face. Garrus had recently stopped wearing his bandage, admitting that he was about as healed as he was going to get, which still meant visible chips and cracks in his facial plates, a swath of scar tissue down the side of his neck, and clearly visible cybernetics in his mandible and jaw. Shepard barely noticed the damage at all any more, truth be told, but as she watched Machaera gaping at Garrus, she remembered that he really did look awfully disreputable by normal standards. And, for that matter, so did she.

Machaera lightly pressed her fingertips to his jaw and said quietly, "What happened?"

"Gunship," Garrus answered.

Her eyes flickered; Shepard couldn't interpret her expression. "Did you get them?"

He nodded to Shepard. "Yes, we got them. Together."

Shepard had the vague feeling she shouldn't be getting warm fuzzies from his statement, but she'd be lying to say she didn't.

The turian woman laughed and slapped Garrus on the back. "Sounds like you two have been having fun, then," she said. "Why don't we go get something to eat?"

"Er…" Garrus glanced at Shepard over the top of the other turian's head.

She and Garrus were supposed to be going to whatever the hell his big surprise was. Shepard raised an eyebrow, waiting for Garrus to talk his way out of this, but instead she watched his expression change as he looked down at Machaera. "Sure. What would you like?"

"You name it, I'll eat it."

Garrus sighed. "Are you okay with take out?"

"Anything."

Was Shepard imagining it, or was there a hint of neediness in the turian woman's voice?

"Fine. We'll get you something to eat and…" He sighed again. "You look like hell. How long has it been since you slept? Two days? Three?"

The female turian's expression collapsed. "Four. Guess the stims aren't working any more, huh?" She smiled up at him, her expression equal parts sheepish and ingratiating. "Hey, don't worry about me. All I need is a quiet corner and a blanket and a reasonable guarantee that a bunch of armed guys in masks aren't going to bust down my door in the middle of the night." She shrugged. "I'll find something. I always do."

"You were threatening to camp out in the lobby," Shepard interjected.

Garrus frowned at Machaera. "Fine. We've got suites in a hotel up in Ward 9. We'll get some food and then you can sleep in my room."

"Oh," she said, looking back and forth between Garrus and Shepard. "But…"

"Commander Shepard has had to put up with me during plenty of missions," Garrus said, as tactfully as possible under the circumstances. "So you can have my room, and I'll sleep on Shepard's….er…couch."

Shepard kept her mouth shut as she processed this information. She hadn't realized that Garrus had taken the initiative to get them a hotel. She also wondered why Garrus had booked two different rooms. Did he really think their talk was going to end up in a fight so bad that they couldn't stand to be in each other's presence? And on top of that, now they were going to have this strange turian tagging around with them—for how long? On the other hand, Garrus had chosen to share a room with her, not Machaera, and the other turian didn't seem surprised by that fact, so perhaps if they had a romantic history, they weren't inclined to continue it.

Machaera looked at Shepard hopefully, and behind her, she could see Garrus pleading with his eyes for understanding.

She didn't understand, not yet, but Garrus was her…best friend at the very least, and she owed him this much.

"I guess I can put up with Garrus' snoring," she replied with an easy grin that she didn't feel.

#

On any other occasion and in any other place, Garrus would have been happy to see Machaera Perihelion, but right now, the other turian was one more complication in a situation that was already straining his nerves to the breaking point. He knew Shepard well enough to interpret her glances as a combination of concern, impatience and confusion, and he knew he'd have a lot of explaining to do once Machaera was getting the rest she needed.

Garrus hung back and let Shepard approach Sergeant Haron, who was guarding the C-Sec access point today. Unlike civilians, he and Shepard didn't need to stand in the immigration lines. Heron nodded respectfully to them and waved Shepard past the check point, but when Machaera came up to him, he frowned and hit a series of buttons which Garrus already knew were the scanning protocols. Garrus wasn't the least surprised when Heron's mandibles started twitching. He looked questioningly at Garrus, then Shepard.

Garrus tried to sound authoritative. "Let her through."

Sergeant Haron looked shocked. "But sir…"

Shepard turned around. "Is there a problem?"

Garrus folded his arms. "She's in the company of Commander Shepard, sergeant. What, exactly, do you think she's going to be able to do with the both of us watching her?"

"Sorry, but I really have to call Captain Bailey on this one."

Garrus sent a prayer skyward that Bailey wasn't going to be in a mood to dicker today, and felt like a hypocrite. He knew the human officer was not entirely a straight cop—he'd taken some kickbacks, and wasn't above using a little rough handling on suspects—but today he hoped that Shepard's good name would be enough to make Bailey break procedure and overlook the marks on Machaera's record. Then Garrus thought about what he'd done to Harkin, and what he'd done on Omega, and realized that he wasn't exactly a straight cop himself any more.

Haron fidgeted as he set down his communicator. "Captain Bailey says to let you do what you please, but…" He shot Shepard a worried glance. "Just be careful."

"Be careful with what?" Shepard said tersely.

Haron stared at his console, looking as though he'd like to disappear into it. "According to this record, Machaera Perihelion is a…"

"That will be all, Sergeant. I'll take it from here."

Poor Haron looked confused, but also relieved as he waved them through security.

They hailed an air taxi and headed up to Ward 9. Garrus let Shepard take the front seat before he squeezed in the back next to Machaera.

"Let's get one thing straight," Garrus growled. "Our asses are hanging way out on the line for you. You should _not _be here right now—or ever. So if I hear of one, even _one_ incident with your name attached to it, there _will_ be repercussions, and if C-Sec can't hold you, Council Spectre Shepard can and damn well _will_. Right now I want your solemn oath that we will not have to deal with any shit from you on the Citadel. Do I make myself clear?"

#

Shepard listened to Garrus give his friend the C-Sec third degree and felt even more confused. One minute he'd been greeting her like an old…

_(lover)_

…friend, and now he was snarling at her like he'd just taken her in for suspicious behaviour.

Machaera didn't seem the least bit fazed, either. "I swear, Garrus. I won't cause you any trouble."

Shepard, however, was reaching the limits of her patience. The enclosed air taxi was decently private, and it was time for some answers. She half-turned in her seat. "Machaera, what did you do?" Shepard asked.

Machaera shrugged. "Got my scaly ass born on the wrong fucking planet."

Shepard raised an eyebrow.

Garrus rolled his eyes. "Our esteemed associate here is, or has been, a known member of at least five prohibited organizations…"

Shepard struggled to keep a straight face. Garrus really, really sounded like a cop right about now.

"I don't see how a temple is a prohibited organization," Machaera countered.

"Your temple is just a front for terrorist fundraising and you know it."

Shepard braced herself for another rousing confrontation, but Machaera backed right down. "I didn't come here to fight, Garrus," she said softly.

"I'm afraid to ask what you did come here for."

"It's good to see you," Machaera said abruptly. "I missed you."

"I've been out of touch," Garrus replied, the understatement of the century. He folded his arms. "I'm surprised they let you off Taetrus."

Taetrus. Shepard had heard the news reports about an act of terrorism there leading to the Turian Hierarchy declaring war on one of the colony's provinces. Could Machaera be mixed up with Facinus, the group responsible for flattening the city of Vallum using a spaceship as a weapon?

Shit, she _wanted_ to patch things up with her boyfriend, not spend the next few days babysitting a radical revolutionary with some strange ties to Garrus that she didn't understand. Slowly, very slowly, her gut started turning over. She turned back around in her seat and let Garrus and Machaera talk.

She'd been thinking over the past few days, about what she'd learned about turians and relationships. It was pretty clear to her that Garrus considered his partnership with her to be, if not quite a turian marriage, at least a similar sort of duty and obligation. The problem was that most turians had romantic relationships outside of their marriages, and Shepard wasn't sure she could deal with a partner who snuck off with other women from time to time…or, hell, turians didn't sneak, he'd just be strolling off with whomever caught his eye.

Like Machaera Perihelion.

Shepard didn't want to admit it, but she was jealous as hell of the female turian sitting back there with Garrus. Garrus was _hers_, or at least…she wanted him to be. She had to keep reminding herself she didn't own him, couldn't possess him, but she craved that reassurance that she was special, that she was worth loving, that she could be good enough to give him everything he needed.

God, the only thing _worse _than sharing him would be cutting him out of her life completely. She didn't have any other family, not like Garrus, not since Pastor Cora passed away. She needed him at her side when they fought the Reapers, and she knew that fight was coming. And they'd already spent the past week pretending to just be friends, and it hadn't worked at all. She remembered their encounter in the Hammerhead, and knew damn well that it was going to be all or nothing between them, and nothing just wasn't an option.

So it was time for her to practice holding herself together, letting Garrus do what he needed to do, and trying to pretend she didn't feel like her heart was crumbling in her chest.

#

Garrus hardly dared to look at Shepard as they took the elevator up to their suites in the Eternial Hotel. The place was nice—not as nice as he'd have liked, but all he could afford with the little money left to his name. Selfishly, he wished that the two of them were alone. If it weren't for Machaera, he could be nuzzling Shepard right now in the privacy of the elevator.

Machaera really did look awful. He'd bought her some food at a little snack shop in the lobby and the first thing she'd done was cram it into her mouth like she hadn't eaten in days. Which she hadn't, he reminded herself. She was still in the process of eating the third of four meat rolls, completely oblivious to the looks that Shepard was giving him behind her back.

Her hide hung loosely between her plates, which were dull and ridged. The scales on her neck were flaky and thin. He wondered how long she'd been living under poor conditions; it seemed like a lot more than a couple of days.

Well, he'd asked for a distraction, and here was a big one.

_Nice going, Garrus._

Garrus opened the smaller of the two rooms. It was simple but pleasant; the suite had been designed for diplomats or businesspeople who had brought a personal retainer with them, and this room was intended to house the assistant. Machaera swallowed down the fourth roll and gave him another hug, licking his cheek, leaving crumbs on his shoulder. "Thanks, Garrus. It's so good to see you," she said. When she released him, she nodded politely to Shepard and promptly curled up on the bed. She was asleep in seconds.

Garrus pulled a blanket over her shoulders and then dared a glance at Shepard. The human's frown had deepened.

He opened the connecting door between the two rooms and inclined his head to Shepard. She stepped through the doorway and her expression was eclipsed by one of wonder.

He had to admit, the room was impressive. A huge king-size bed. Satin sheets. Whirlpool tub in the corner. Gorgeous view. Thick carpet. Monstrous bathroom. The list went on.

"Wow, Garrus," Shepard murmured. "How are you affording all this on a vigilante's salary?"

"You're worth it," he said, his voice thick.

Shepard turned to him, her confusion clearly evident. "Garrus, I don't understand what's going on here."

"I wanted to do something nice for you," he confessed.

"So why two rooms?"

He really didn't want to say it, but… "In case things don't work out. The second room was supposed to be for me if you kicked me out of here, but don't let that stop you. The bed is yours; if you don't want me in it, I'll sleep on the floor. Machaera…I want her to have the other room. She really needs the rest."

Shepard's frown returned. "Machaera's not a recon scout, is she?"

"As a matter of fact, she was. Why do you…oh." Garrus' mandibles opened in a smirk. Was Shepard jealous? "No, not _that _recon scout." A dark sensation of being very pleased with himself filtered through his mind, but he didn't let it linger. Any pleasure he might feel about Shepard wanting him all to herself was erased by guilt at causing her distress.

Shepard huffed. "Laugh it up, Garrus."

He needed to give her some reassurance. "By the Spirits, Commander, I am not going to test the flexibility of a woman almost twice my age."

Shepard blinked. "She's that old?"

"She fought with my father in the Relay 314 incident."

Shepard seemed only half reassured. "Is she really a terrorist sympathizer?"

"Don't let her fool you," Garrus said quietly. "She's done hard time for the things she's been involved in." His mandibles twitched. "But if you're asking me whether or not I think she's a threat on the Citadel, the answer is no. She's a Colonial Separatist. She's not going to mug tourists, commit random murders or take candy from babies. And if whoever she runs with really wanted to attack the turian councillor, they'd have picked someone without a criminal record to do the job—or given her falsified documents good enough to fool Citadel Security." He tapped some buttons on his omni-tool and grimaced at the image that popped up. "These are really awful."

"Surprised Taetrus didn't pick them up when she left."

"Taetrus security is a bit of a mess right now. Extreme in some places, full of holes in others. Machaera must have found a gap and slipped right through." He shrugged and closed the images. "I can see her point of view. Being on the no-fly list must have felt like house arrest. A prisoner on your own planet."

Shepard shook her head. "Okay, there's something I don't get, here. If she's a terrorist, how the hell are you so friendly with her?"

Garrus let out a sigh. "She's family, of sorts."

"Of sorts?"

"I really don't want to get into it right now…it's a complicated story and I think we have more important matters to attend to, don't you? I promise I'll tell you about it later. She's in trouble, I had to help her, but…I really wanted today to be for us."

Shepard turned to him, hugged him tightly and buried her face in his shoulder. He curled his arms around her waist, shocked at the intensity of the hug, the neediness at which she clung to him. In this moment she seemed less like Commander Shepard and more like just a woman—_his _woman.

His instincts were screaming at him to say something stupid like _let's have a nice dinner and a private evening together and we can talk about this stuff tomorrow_. God, he wanted to try out that bed with her, right now in fact, and he wondered if she'd turn him down if he asked. He doubted it…but sex really wouldn't be a smart move on his part. Not when he'd be wondering the whole way through it if it would be their last time. He couldn't live in this limbo forever, and the longer he waited, the worse his odds would be. Machaera was already a complicating factor.

Shepard finally released him. "So, what are we going to do, then? You said you had something you wanted to show me."

"Let's get dressed in something a little more comfortable, shall we?"

"Is that a request to get out of the armour or a request to get naked?"

"Oh, Commander, that's not fair. I'd been intending to…" He swallowed, flustered. "Intending to give you a chance to get out of the N7 armour and into something less…recognizable…" For his part, he felt more comfortable in his armour than in his only civilian outfit, but he'd make the sacrifice. "So that when we're walking around everyone isn't saying, _oh, there's Commander Shepard and Officer Vakarian_ and trying to interview us or something."

Shepard nodded. "Two ordinary people on a date?"

"Yeah." His voice was husky.

She hugged him again. "I'd really like that."

#

Shepard watched the monkeys swinging from branch to branch and wondered what they were doing here. When Garrus had suggested taking her "somewhere special" to explain his feelings, she hadn't bargained on the Citadel's zoo.

She glanced over at Garrus, who was smirking at the monkeys. "Mind telling me why we're here?"

The turian turned to her and flared his mandibles in a grin. "What, are you ashamed of your relation to a species that likes to fling its own poo?"

"Laugh it up, Garrus."

He tilted his head. "It really is fascinating how the monkeys behave. They exhibit friendships, rivalries, scientific learning through trial and error, and more relationship drama than a holo-vid."

"I thought we were supposed to….never mind."

He raised his eyebrow ridges. "What is it?"

Shepard fidgeted. "First I thought you wanted to have some important discussion with me. Now it feels like we're just out for a fun afternoon…not that I have any problem with that," she added quickly. "It's kind of nice to be able to go somewhere with you that doesn't involve getting shot at."

Garrus smiled again. "Yes. It is." He glanced around. "But you're right, I did bring you here for a reason." Tentatively, the turian stretched out his hand towards her.

She took it. Yeah, it was a public place and yeah, she was getting some weird looks, but what the hell—she wasn't going to discourage Garrus from treating her like an equal and she wasn't afraid of walking around the Citadel as one half of an interspecies couple. She wrapped her hand around his and let him lead her through the zoo.

The place really was fascinating: wildlife from a variety of planets, living in large enclosures that replicated their natural habitats. In the interests of promoting galactic multiculturalism, various species had been asked to provide the most iconic animals and plants of their home worlds and colonial planets. She would have loved to have lingered, but Garrus was walking like a man on a mission, and Shepard could only wonder what in the hell there was in the zoo that could explain their…

Garrus came to a halt so fast that Shepard almost crashed into him. She looked up at him inquiringly, and by way of response, he simply pointed the hand that wasn't currently entangled with hers.

Shepard looked in the direction he indicated and grew very still.

The creatures in the enclosure—Shepard didn't know their names, but she didn't need to activate the zoo's VI tour guide to know where they were from. To someone from Earth, they didn't seem all that physically different from the monkeys, if it were possible for a monkey to have a velociraptor on one side of its family tree and a bald eagle on the other.

There were two of them, side by side up on a rock, a good six feet above the audience that was staring at them, and Shepard swore that they were taking as much amusement from watching the parade of visitors as the visitors took from them. Their heads, backs, and shoulders were covered in reflective golden plates; the backs of their necks were adorned with sprays of tassels, red on the largest creature, blue on the smaller one. They were quadrupeds, but every once in a while the red one would rear up on its hind legs, balancing itself with its tail, and give the audience a good look at a beak full of needle teeth; then it would go back to licking its partner and eyeing the zoo visitors with a knowing look. The creature's message seemed clear: _you don't mess with my territory and we'll all have a good time_.

"What are they?" Shepard asked, watching the blue animal nuzzle its mate with obvious affection.

"Gennaires," Garrus said.

Her eyes narrowed. Garrus' mandibles were starting to flicker; she knew him well enough now to know nervousness when she saw it. She waited, but he didn't speak, didn't even look at her. His eyes were fixed on the two gennaires.

Shepard tried to control her impatience by accessing the VI, whose avatar was a safari guide. It told her, in a bad Australian accent, that the gennaires were apex predators native to Palaven. They lived communally and had one or two young at a time. She was nodding along when something the VI said jolted her into full alertness.

She keyed the console to make the safari guide back up and begin that section again.

_Young gennaires are raised communally by the community as a whole. Upon reaching adolescence, they develop sexual interest and take multiple mates. However, this is also the age at which the young join in the hunt to provide fresh meat for the community, and it is in the course of learning to hunt that a young gennaire finds a partner whose skills compliment its own. Hunting partners, once bonded, are monogamous for life._

Then the hairs on the back of her neck prickled, giving her the strange feeling that she was being watched. She slid her eyes sideways and noticed that Garrus was observing her and not the animals. He still didn't say anything, though she could see him shifting his weight from foot to foot, and when he placed his hand on hers, she could feel it shaking.

Garrus was trembling all over. This was it—time to be honest with Shepard. While part of him was thankful that the hellish are-we-friends-or-are-we-lovers limbo was about to end, most of him, right now, was begging for just a little more limbo before things came right down to the wire.

He was going to tell Shepard everything and put his heart in her hands, and he had to accept that she might not want the problems, or the responsibility, that came with being partners with a turian.

Shepard was still holding his hand, and she'd clearly noticed his tremors. "Hey, Garrus. Are you okay?"

"Fine," he managed to say, though he really didn't feel fine at all. His mandibles went from clicking to a full-out clatter.

She snorted. "You look like you're about to walk in front of a firing squad."

Yes, that was exactly how he felt. _Can't put one over on Shepard. _So it was time to come clean, but he didn't want to do it out here in the open, where passers-by occasionally took curious glances at them. Right now it didn't matter to him if they were thinking _is that Commander Shepard? _or _is that turian on a date with a human? _This—what was about to happen between the two of them—was none of anyone else's business.

He glanced about them. He thought about, and subsequently rejected, a low stone wall—_too exposed—_and a pile of hay bales—_not very sturdy. _It was only as he gestured towards a row of feed sacks along a walkway leading to the back of the gennaires' enclosure that he remembered he wasn't looking for cover from an impending firefight.

Well, at least the rear of the gennaire house was boring enough, and set back far enough from the regular flow of traffic, that most people never bothered with this walkway. The feed sacks gave them decent cover, blocking them from the view of the passers-by, and they weren't all that uncomfortable either. Garrus sat down on a ledge made of sacks and watched Shepard do the same.

And….he watched her a little too long, because as soon as she turned those wide, expectant eyes towards him, he found himself completely unable to say anything.

Shit! How could someone who faced down three mercenary gangs not have enough courage to…

…_oh Spirits I'd rather be facing those gangs again right now…_

He forced his mouth to move. What came out was "Uhh…" and a rapid fluttering of his mandibles.

_You rehearsed this. "Shepard, I need to know what you want out of this relationship…"_

Garrus took a deep breath, managed to get as far as the word "Shepard," and then felt her hand gently settling over his mouth, cutting him off before he could say any more.

"Garrus, I want to say something first. Let me say this and then you can talk all you want." She rested her forehead against his. "I did the research, Garrus. I know about turians and relationships and I know what you're going to tell me."

His heart rate spiked with alarm. He could feel the adrenaline dump into his veins. Had he been so bloody obvious that even a human could tell? Her hand was still on his mouth; would he even get a chance to justify himself?

_Most humans can't handle it. They run._

Shepard's gaze dropped. Garrus felt trapped, helpless, as though he were pinned down under enemy fire in the middle of an open field. No cover. No protection. Nothing to do but hope and pray and know he didn't have a chance in hell. She wouldn't look so upset if he did.

"It's going to kill me to share you," she whispered as her eyes glimmered with tears. "But I…I want to be with you, Garrus, whatever it takes. So if that's how it has to be…"

His mandibles flared in denial. _Share?_ Had she really thought he only wanted to… And did she really think enough of him to be willing to _share_ him if she had to?

She composed herself, lifted her hand from his mouth and used it to wipe the corners of her eyes.

"Nobody but you," he said urgently. "No sharing. Just you."

Shepard's eyes widened. "But…"

"Shepard, weren't you listening? The adolescents screw everything in sight, but once they find their hunting partners, they're…" He could feel his mandibles quivering uncontrollably, "…then they're monogamous for life. Turians aren't that far evolved from gennaires. We've still got the instincts, we can still bond like that…and I…I…"

"You want to do that with me?" She seemed incredulous, as though she couldn't quite believe it.

He nodded, the simplest answer, if not the most honest.

"I'd like to spend my life with you," she whispered, and his heart soared.

"Shepard," he breathed. "Are you sure? Because humans...can change their minds...and if you do that, it'll kill me."

"I'm sure," she said, but her next words reminded him that she still didn't quite understand. "How do we do this?" she asked. "This bonding thing."

He swallowed. "It's not a ceremony, Shepard. It's an instinctive reaction."

"How do we make it happen, then?"

His mandibles flickered; he felt ashamed. "Actually, we usually try to stop it from happening. My people don't look on it well. My father used to say there's nothing more pathetic than a turian in love. There's a lot of ranting that as sentient beings we shouldn't be subject to the whims of animal emotion; that we should know where to draw the line. It's generally accepted that we should choose our mates for logical reasons like good genetics, social standing, that sort of thing, and bond later—if at all—and I…I used to be one of the _worst _people for saying that, Shepard, and it's probably ironic as hell that it's gone and happened to me." He swallowed hard. "What I'm trying to say is, it's already happened, Shepard. I don't even know exactly when. All I know is that I…" He hesitated, realizing that turian phrases like _I am sworn to you_ might not mean much to her. But he knew what would, and in the end, it meant the same thing. "I love you."

She was staring at him incredulously; then she reached out and laid her hand on his scarred cheek. She smiled. She sobbed.

And then he felt the impact against his chest and he caught her, wrapped his arms around her, held her like he'd never let her go.

After a long while, she drew back. "But I thought it was your social obligation to get married and reproduce and…"

"To hell with it," he growled. "I'm not a good turian; I already told you that. I don't give a damn what my father or my people or anyone else thinks. This isn't about them. This is about us." He put his arms around her waist, pulled her against him possessively. "I don't want anyone else." Garrus touched his forehead to hers and whispered softly, "I belong to you, now." His gaze slid to the ground. "The extranet says this is usually the point where humans freak out and run, and…"

"Let me see if I understand this," Shepard said, and for once she didn't care that her voice was shaky. "You're telling me that after a lifetime of not wanting to gamble my heart on any man again, I've finally found a bet I can't lose?"

Garrus nodded. He seemed unable to speak.

"Heh." She knew her smile probably looked ghastly, but she couldn't help it as she continued, "And you're telling me that for the first time ever, I don't have to worry about someone I care about getting tired of me and leaving."

"Shepard, I _can't_ leave you. My instincts…"

His words were overwhelming. The walls she'd built around herself were not so much cracked or crumbled as they were _swamped _by the utter enormity of what he was saying. A species whose very naturewas to find a mate for life. Who phrased his affection as a duty not because he felt forced into the relationship, but because it was _how his people showed love_. She thought of the two gennaires, the hunting partners who sought food together, relaxed together, raised their young together…a species for whom devotion and affection were the same thing.

Garrus never got to finish telling her about his instincts. Shepard was not afraid to admit that she was overcome by her emotions, and before he could say any more, she cut off his words with a kiss.

Her partner stiffened in her arms, made a mewling noise deep in his throat and then his arms were around her and he was kissing her back as best he could, licking her gently, brushing his tongue over hers.

She didn't care if her jaw was all numb tomorrow. This was worth it. This was so, so worth it… Her joy dizzied her. She felt as though she were caught in some crazy G-force that left her disoriented and euphoric and pressed right up against Garrus, and it was exactly where she wanted to be.

When the kiss ended, she said giddily, "So to you, it's like we're married, right?"

He nodded, but as he did so, his smile faded. "Marriage in the human sense, perhaps. Turian marriage is a much more businesslike proposition and, well, if you were a turian, I wouldn't make a good marriage choice." He took a deep breath. "I've got nothing to offer you," he said quietly. "Two years ago...two years ago, I had a good job at C-Sec, a nice apartment, savings in the bank, and an open invitation to start a family in the clan compound back on Palaven. That's all over ashes now."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm not a turian," Shepard joked, but Garrus didn't smile.

He seemed upset all of a sudden. "I read on the extranet that human women want...I mean...I can't give you children, I can't even give you a house and a...a...whatever that perimeter security is that humans are so fond of...white picket fence?" He looked down. "Are you sure you don't need someone closer to home?"

Shepard stared at him, wondering why he was bringing up _this_ of all things, and then Kelly's words flitted through her memory..._turians have twelve different epithets for a deadbeat who can't support his family_. Garrus was just being a turian—trying to show his love by doing his duty—and fearing that he was failing at it.

"Garrus," she said softly. "I don't need a house with a picket fence. We live on a starship, for heaven's sake."

He looked more confused than relieved, and then Shepard realized what she had to do. She took a deep breath and said, "What I _need _is a gunnery officer who can calibrate my ship's cannons. Someone who's a great shot with a sniper rifle to back me up on missions. Someone who I know can lead a team in my absence. And...if something happened to you that you couldn't do any of that any more...that's not even the most important thing." She squeezed his hand in hers. "Because the thing I need most of all is a loyal heart."

Slowly, Garrus Vakarian's mandibles split in a turian smile. "I...think I can do that," he said, and then he drew himself up and corrected himself. "No. I_ can_ do that, Shepard, and I will. For you." His mandibles trembled. "Are you sure that's enough?"

Shepard let her other hand stroke his face. "Garrus, you've got to remember I'm used to being on my own. I don't have any relatives to be pissed off at me for crossing the species line. I don't even know if I want to be a parent myself, and if someday we decide that we do, there's more than one way to have children. We've got time to figure things out, right? In the meantime, we've got a lot of walking into hell to do." She tilted her head. "So what do you say? Do you want to come for a walk into hell with me?"

"Definitely."

Shepard was about to kiss him again when he tightened his fingers around her hand and flicked his eyes sideways. "We should go before we become the star exhibit."

Shepard followed his glance and noticed several other tourists gawking at them. One turian mother dropped her hands over her child's eyes. Shepard stared back, challengingly, before lacing her arm through Garrus' and saying, "Come on, let's blow this place."

Garrus seemed content to let her guide him away, but as they left, Shepard shot a look back over her shoulder. The two gennaires were grooming one another, growling happily, lost in their own little world. They weren't oblivious to their audience—they just didn't give a damn. And right now, Shepard didn't give too many damns herself.

Hunting partners. She liked that.


	4. Chapter 4: Sea Of No Cares

Closer to Home

Chapter the Fourth: Sea Of No Cares

He had Shepard up against one of the Citadel walls, his hands on her back, his body pressed to hers. The greenery of a park, complete with lake and gardens, stretched out all around, but neither of them were the least bit aware of it. Shepard's eyes were closed, as though her entire concentration was on him, on how it felt to be near him.

The only word Garrus Vakarian could think of for how it felt to be close to her was heaven. An Archangel, home at last.

He wondered if anyone walking by was watching them, but then he discarded the thought. Let them. Let the whole damn Citadel see that Garrus Vakarian was in love with Commander Shepard. He kissed her, and a thought flittered through his mind, that any curious turians nearby were welcome to take a look and see how it was done, to kiss a human—and then the sweet taste of her drove any other thoughts from his mind.

Her hands slid down to this waist…oh, Spirits, she was touching his waist, right in front of everybody. She had to want him as he wanted her, had to…

Her tongue stroked over his and his mind went blank save for delight and need, twining together.

Garrus' sanity didn't resurface until Shepard finally drew back, chest heaving for air, eyes wide. She turned her head, and when Garrus followed her line of sight, he saw a wide-eyed human with a cam bot. From the look of surprise on the human's face, Garrus could guess that he and Shepard had starred in several frames of candid video before Shepard had caught the culprit. The human turned on his heel and bolted.

Garrus glanced at Shepard, wondering if she wanted him to pursue the human, break the camera and thrash the hell out of the voyeuristic little bastard, but instead, Shepard put her mouth against his cheek. "Garrus," she whispered, and he loved the throaty rasp in her voice. "Garrus, if we don't leave now, one of your former co-workers might come along and arrest us for public indecency."

He didn't want to let her go. To hell with public indecency, and to hell with any C-Sec officers who thought they could tell him what to do. The thought of Sergeant Haron standing behind them clearing his throat in a vain attempt to get their attention, until he choked at the sight of what they were doing together, made Garrus snicker…oh, somewhere along the road he'd become a very bad man indeed. "I'd like to see them try," he teased.

Shepard smiled, and then leaned closer and whispered, "Garrus, take me home."

Oh.

Her word. His command.

#

Shepard's head was spinning as she let Garrus lead her by the hand through the corridors of the Citadel. She couldn't remember the last time she'd done this—permit someone else to pull her along in his wake while she did nothing but think about how good she felt and how happy she was and how she couldn't wait to get him in that big hotel bed and…

Realization dawned slowly. This was…the port?

"Garrus?" she asked.

Her boyfr…no, partner turned to look at her. "Yes?"

"What are we doing on the docks?"

Garrus glanced at a vessel moored just a little further along the docking corridor. "I'm taking you home."

Shepard followed his gaze and saw the Normandy, hanging in the void, and a sudden warmth filled her heart. It was true, wasn't it? The Normandy was their home.

"Oh God, Garrus," she whispered, touched by his perceptiveness. Then the two of them were racing each other for the airlock, squeezing each other's hands while they waited for a short eternity for the decontamination cycle, and then bolting through the corridor for the elevator, gaining curious glances from the handful of crew still on board.

EDI's voice pinged in the elevator. "Commander…"

Garrus was nuzzling her neck, and her thoughts were giddy, but she managed enough presence of mind to say, "EDI, I am not on this ship."

"But Commander…"

"If anyone asks, I am not on this ship and neither is Officer Vakarian. That will be all."

"Logging you out, Commander."

#

Garrus had already managed to remove Shepard's jacket and was seriously debating how much trouble he would get in for just tearing off her top when the elevator doors opened and they stumbled into Shepard's quarters.

Shepard extracted herself from his grip, somewhat reluctantly he guessed from the way she let her hands linger on his waist. "Wait here," Shepard said, and she disappeared into the bathroom.

Wait? Garrus didn't want to wait. He wanted her here with him, right now. Impatient, he took off his shirt and tossed it into the corner. Useless civilian gear.

He hesitated about getting rid of his pants. Yes, he wanted them off, and Spirits, would it be so wrong of him to bleed off just a little tension while Shepard did whatever she was doing in the bathroom? On the other hand, he doubted whether that was…appropriate, in the absence of Shepard telling him to…

The bathroom door swung open.

Shepard stood there in her robe. Shyly, she looked at him, then opened the robe to reveal something he'd never seen before…a new underwear set in blue lace. This set was slightly paler than the last one, with a strapless bra and…

He whimpered.

She was tormenting him; why did he love it?

Shepard had something in her hand that looked like a pencil. He didn't know what it was, and he didn't care. She walked forward into the room, her hips swaying, and then turned to face the mirror. He got up from the bed, feeling like he was walking in a dream as he made his way over to her, took position behind her, and wrapped his arms around her waist.

His lover. His mate.

His bonded partner.

Garrus looked up towards the mirror, where he could see himself holding her. He watched his own mandibles flare with pride as he saw how Shepard smiled when he touched her. He observed his own hand travelling over her body, heard her sigh. It took her voice to wake him from a state very like a dream.

"Garrus," Shepard whispered. "Is this right?"

He watched, his mouth suddenly dry, as she used the pencil to draw a cobalt blue line over her left cheekbone.

"What is that?" he rasped, as his sense of reality suddenly entered freefall.

"Eyeliner." She swallowed. "It's makeup. It's supposed to make your eyes stand out….like this…" Shepard demonstrated, making two small blue markings in the corner of her eyes, but Garrus could barely concentrate.

"Give me that," he said, and before he could realize how inappropriate it was for him to speak to his superior in such a fashion, she had turned around and handed him the pencil.

Quickly, his hands shaking, he sketched in blue lines over her cheekbones, across the bridge of her nose, in angles along her jaw. Quivering, he returned the pencil and turned her towards the mirror to show her his handwork. He folded his hands around her waist again and took a good, long look at himself and Shepard with matching markings on their faces.

She was staring too, and at last she licked her lips and broke the silence. "Is this what would happen if I was a turian?"

Garrus growled low in his chest, forcing the words past the tightness in his throat. "If you had a home colony, you'd keep your tattoos…but if you were barefaced…yes, you'd be taken into the Vakarian clan…."

"You mean someone like me, who has no family?" she murmured.

Oh Spirits, it was driving him mad to see her like this. Her, Shepard, his mate, with that pattern on her face, straight out of his fantasies… He growled, lapping at her neck, his hands on her waist, his hips pressed against her from behind. Want? He had never known what the word_ want_ truly meant before now.

"Nip me," Shepard ordered softly.

He did, so gently, on the left side of her neck.

"No. Harder."

Garrus blinked at her. He remembered well what had happened the first time; and he suddenly felt awkward, wondering what she was asking him. "Uh, it'll leave a mark."

Shepard swallowed. "I want it to." She licked her lips. "So everyone knows we're together."

Oh, Spirits.

So he did. He nipped her smartly while his hands stroked her waist, and then he licked the nape of her neck and felt her hips press back against his thighs. He could see the bruise slowly building on the side of her neck while she moaned and rubbed her body against his, while he covered her back with his chest.

And then Garrus watched, his heart thundering, as Shepard went down on her knees, leaning over the counter. "Garrus," she said softly, "I want to…I..."

He tried to swallow, though his mouth was suddenly dry as dust. "Are you sure?" He'd tried to ask her for this before, only to have her recoil.

Shepard looked oddly shy as she leaned back against him and looked into the mirror. He lifted his head and saw their reflections, two people in blue face paint, a hunting pair.

"I'll be all right," Shepard said. "I want to watch us…"

His heart hammered. His head reeled. "I want that too."

Shepard wasn't sure how much later she woke up with a sick feeling in her guts, a throbbing in her head and a sensation in her mouth as though she'd been licking a cotton sock. It had been quite some time, for sure.

She had bruises on her knees that probably matched the tender patch on her neck. Her back and thighs and hips were chafed in a way that even the lotion couldn't entirely fix. Her stomach rolled, and she doubted she'd want to see breakfast, or even lunch.

They hadn't even made it to the bed. Somewhere along the line they'd both passed out on the floor.

She didn't regret a minute of it. She hoped that neither did….

Shepard sat up. She was alone.

"Garrus?"

A wretched noise emanated from her bathroom. It was followed by a rather tremulous "I'm alive…"

Shepard sprinted across the room, her own aches and pains forgotten. "Garrus, are you all right?"

Garrus looked up from his position kneeling in front of the toilet and gave her a weak smile. "Sorry…" His mandibles stuck out at a strange angle, as though his mouth was badly swollen.

She felt immediately guilty, though truth be told, her own tummy was a little queasy. "God, Garrus, you should have stopped that sooner."

His smile bloomed into a full-on smirk. "That's not what you were saying last night."

"I don't recall being able to say much of anything last night."

"Which means you didn't want me to stop."

She sighed. No, she hadn't, but… "I don't want you to make yourself sick."

He shrugged. "So maybe next time we'll be more judicious about where our tongues go and how long they stay there. Or…maybe not. Some things are worth it."

Shepard threw back her head, and laughed. The room tilted and spun, but he was right—it was worth it.

"Here," she said, opening the medicine cabinet and withdrawing two injectors, each in a separate bag. "That one's for you."

"What's this?"

"Something to help with the fact that we're both nauseous, swollen, aching, and breathing heavily from allergic reactions to one another?"

Garrus took the injector gratefully, leaned back from the toilet and rammed the needle into his arm. "I feel like a junkie."

"I don't want to stop being addicted to you," she said with a grin as she took her own medicine.

"Kind of handy for you to have this stuff around," the turian said thoughtfully.

Shepard blushed. "I got it before the Omega-Four relay," she confessed. The night they'd fooled around but hadn't quite made it as far as intercourse.

"High time we put it to good use, then," he said with a wink, and then they found themselves both laughing, holding hands while they sat sprawled all over the floor of her bathroom and…

In the other room, something beeped.

"Dammit!" Shepard muttered with a curse as she staggered to her feet. "I told EDI we weren't here!"

Stumbling into her quarters, Shepard realized, to her surprise, that the sound was not coming from her personal terminal, nor her omnitool. Instead, it was Garrus' omnitool that trilled with an incoming message.

Garrus scowled. "Voice only, activate."

"Garrus?" Machaera's voice echoed out of the omnitool, made distinctive by its strange accent. "Garrus, where are you?"

Garrus tapped a few buttons and responded. "Commander Shepard and I are out on business," he said, his eyes sliding over to his mate. Shepard blushed. Business, indeed.

"You'd never believe who came by here looking for you."

Garrus' mandibles flickered. He hesitated before pushing the button and quipping, "I'm guessing not the C-Sec awards committee."

"It was your twice-damned father, Garrus." Machaera sounded angry.

And Shepard didn't like the way the female turian was talking to _her _partner. Shepard grabbed for the omnitool, twisting Garrus' arm enough to elicit a hiss of surprise as she depressed the transmit button.

"I thought you were looking for Commandant Vakarian," Shepard snapped, remembering Machaera's argument with the customs guard. "Why didn't you just ask him your question and be done with it?"

"Because all I wanted to ask him was where I could find Garrus," the other turian countered.

Since Garrus had chosen voice-only transmissions—obviously to hide their current lack of clothing—Shepard couldn't see Machaera's face. She guessed, though, that the lady turian sounded slightly less hostile, even though her response was quick and defensive.

Garrus was looking at her and giving her the "cease-fire" hand signal. Confused, Shepard released his omni-tool.

"I'll deal with it, Machaera," he said. "Did he see you?"

"No. I talked to him through the door." A strange sound came across the line—it could have been either a laugh or a sob. "I told him…told him I was the cleaning staff. Didn't even recognize my voice…that…" Her transmission ended with a string of expletives, degenerating into a state where Shepard's translator could only decipher every second or third word, and none of those words were flattering.

"Machaera. I'll deal with it." Garrus took a deep breath. "Do you need us to come pick you up?"

When next she spoke, her voice was flat and cold. "I'm fine."

"Just a moment." Garrus put the transmission on hold. He glanced up at Shepard. "Shepard, I don't want to run out on you, but I've got an incipient crisis here."

Shepard tilted her head. "How long has it been since you talked to your father?"

"Um…two years?"

"Garrus!"

"What?" he protested.

Shepard was shocked. She knew Garrus wasn't much for chatting over the extranet, but how could someone so loyal neglect his own blood for two years? "Look, I know you don't get along with him, but he's your family. Do you have any other family?"

"Mother. Grandmother. Three older half-siblings. Two younger siblings. Various nieces and nephews…"

"Garrus!" she said again.

He blinked at her stupidly.

Shepard let out a ragged breath, running a hand through her hair. "And you haven't seen any of them in two years either?"

"I mailed them on the extranet sometimes…Shepard, I had problems of my own."

Yes. She could admit that being a vigilante on Omega wasn't the sort of thing to write home about. Still…

"Do you know what I'd give to have a family like that?" she said quietly. "They can't all be like your father, surely?"

Garrus hung his head. "No," he admitted.

"And you can't avoid the old man forever. There's got to be something good about him, if he'd come looking for you."

The turian looked at his clawed feet instead of answering her.

Shepard sat down on the bed and wrapped a blanket around herself. "I think we should both shower and get dressed, and then you need to call your father, and I'll go back to the hotel and deal with Machaera." She frowned. "What the hell is her problem, anyway?"

"Machaera is bonded to my father."

Shepard didn't know what she'd been expecting, but that hadn't been it. She felt suddenly uncomfortable Apparently some of Kelly's information about turians had been accurate after all. And what the hell was the appropriate thing to say to your boyfriend's father's mistress?

"I don't know the whole story," Garrus admitted. "It happened long ago, during what we call the Relay 314 Incident and you call the First Contact War. All I know is that she fell in love with him, and wanted to marry him. He turned her down and married my mother instead. Hardly surprising. Promising young police officers from Palaven don't marry colonials with questionable associates and checkered pasts, particularly not when they've got a better offer from an attractive widow with a successful government career."

"Your mother," Shepard guessed.

Garrus nodded.

Maybe this sort of thing was normal for turians, but Shepard still found it distressing, awkward, upsetting…she didn't know the word for how she felt right now. It was a human-centric point of view, and she tried to accept that it would feel different to a turian. For a moment she even wished she _was_ a turian—so many problems would go away if that were so.

"And Machaera's been having an affair with your father ever since?"

"No, actually, to my understanding she told him to rot in hell."

Shepard snorted. "Don't blame her. But…"

"But she's a turian, and that bond doesn't go away."

Suddenly…finally…Shepard understood why Garrus had been acting the way he had. The turian lifebond had a dark side, a terrible, devastating fallout that occurred when the other partner didn't feel the same. It wasn't just about falling in love. It was about falling in love _and never getting out again_. Not even if you wanted to.

Shepard had a horrible sensation of déjà vu. "Garrus? Do you remember Septimus Oraka? The retired turian general we found half-sloshed in Chora's Den?"

"Yes."

"And his crush on the asari consort Sha'ira…how did he put it? He wanted her to be more than she felt she could be?"

Garrus' hand slipped to hers, gripped it tightly. "He was in love with her. Bonded with her. Any turian could see it."

Shepard paled. "I told him to pull himself together and start acting like a general. Are you telling me…"

"My friends in C-Sec say he's improved. Joined some social clubs, caught up with old friends, that sort of thing—stuff to keep him busy. He's not drinking himself into a stupor any more, at any rate." Garrus turned his piercing gaze on her. "But he's never going to be right again either, not really. It feels like…"

He didn't seem to be able to find the words to describe how it felt, but Shepard had a terrible suspicion she knew. Garrus had told her how he felt at her funeral and the image had stayed with her, haunting her.

"Like all the stars are going out," she whispered.

Garrus nodded.

"Oh, God, Garrus, that's horrible."

He nodded again, and Shepard felt that she'd finally understood what he'd gambled for the chance to be with her. He'd bet everything against terrible odds.

She would _never_ let him down.

She hugged him tightly, furiously. "That's not going to happen to you. Not ever. I swear." He clung to her as she stroked his neck, his shoulders, bunting him as she'd seen him do to her. She couldn't imagine how terrible it would be to only be able to fall in love once in a lifetime, knowing the horrible consequences that came with getting it wrong.

Finally, he released his grip, though he stayed curled against her. "We're supposed to be talking about Machaera, not me."

"I want to make sure you're all right first, Garrus."

Garrus licked her cheek. "As long as we're together, I'm just fine."

"Nothing's taking you away from me, Vakarian."

He flared his mandibles in a smile, and then wrapped his arm around her, holding her close. "All right. So, Machaera."

"I'm…well, I'm surprised she went to all this trouble to track me down. What I think about her…doesn't make sense to me, Shepard. She did some bad things. She went to jail. She's a threat to law and order and I really don't feel good at the idea of associating with her again after all this time. It's hard enough to get the Council to take us seriously." He swallowed. "The Hierarchy needs to be united. It's the only way the turian people can stand against the Reapers. Hell, the whole galaxy needs to be united, and right now we can't afford to have rogue elements tearing that alliance apart." He swallowed, and his mandibles flicked with agitation. "I can't condone her separatism and I don't like her methods. But I'm…I'm not entirely convinced she's wrong. She's got to have her reasons, even if I don't know what they are." He shook his head. "On the other hand, whether she's justified or not, we're already associating with Jack, Zaeed, Kasumi and Thane: a convict, a mercenary, a thief and an assassin. And…I missed her, Shepard. I liked spending time with her, when I was a kid."

Shepard felt more and more confused. Turians—was she ever going to understand them?

"Tell me about that," she said cautiously.

"When I was a kid, she'd come by every summer to spend time with us. Me, my brothers and my sisters. We'd go camping, or hunting, or to a carnival. And every year on Ancestors' Day we'd get a big parcel full of gifts." Garrus shook his head. "I adored her when I was younger, and I always thought I was her favourite. She taught me to shoot, you know."

Shepard raised an eyebrow.

Garrus laughed. "I was five. I don't think my father would have liked the idea of me holding a gun so early, but she did…told me it was our secret." He sighed. "Shepard, I don't know how to reconcile that with the things I read in her file. She's not a bad person. She's not a monster. She gave me some very stern lectures in her time, and I tried to live by them, and I think I'm a better person for it." His eyes darkened. "I have no idea if she's had anyone since my father, but it wouldn't matter. Her devotion is to him, for life, and he…well…he married my mother instead."

"That's sad."

"It's a mess, is what it is." Garrus shook his head. "If you know anything about turians, Commander, you'll know it's not unusual for her to dote on my father's children. I suspect my siblings and I are as close as she'll ever come to kids of her own."

"That's not what I meant."

Garrus regarded her curiously.

"I get why she might want to hang out with you. What I don't get is why your father let her."

Slowly, his mandibles spread opened and then hung there, gaping, as Shepard continued.

"I mean, if I were a parent, would I want my kids hanging around with a convicted terrorist?"

Garrus' jaw worked, but for a few moments no sound came out. Finally he spoke. "I…never thought of it that way, Shepard. I suppose…I suppose I just never questioned it. Heh. When I was little, I thought Machaera was some distant relative of my mom's or something. Visiting her every summer was…well, it was normal. It was just what we did."

Shepard took his hand in hers. "How do they get along now? Your father and Machaera?"

He snorted. "They haven't spoken in…any time I can remember. It was always comm mails, written, never live vids. When she came to pick us up, my father would leave the compound and make my mother deal with her."

Shepard winced. "Ouch."

"They didn't fight." He stroked his chin thoughtfully "Surprising, really. You've seen how she is."

"Yeah. Nothing personal, but I bet Machaera could be pretty catty if she wanted to be."

"She wasn't. Machaera and my mom, together…they just seemed…" He scratched his brow. "Businesslike, mostly, and sometimes kind of sad. Not angry, not bitter, not upset. Just sad."

"It couldn't have been easy for your mother," Shepard murmured, "knowing that he was in love with her."

Garrus snorted. "I'm not certain my father has ever been in love, and if he has, then I pity him, if he really feels the best part of it was his ability to walk away." He growled, folding his arms, taking a defensive position at her side and slightly behind her.

"Garrus?" Shepard felt her stomach twist as she turned to face him. "How's he going to react when he finds out that…"

She didn't need to finish the sentence. Garrus already knew what she meant, and he answered her with a single word.

"Badly."


	5. Chapter 5: Fortunate Son

**Closer to Home**

Chapter the Fifth: Fortunate Son

"Are you going to comm your father?" Shepard asked as she popped the last california roll into her mouth.

On the way back to the hotel, she and Garrus had stopped off along Restaurant Row to pick up a platter of sushi, soup and salad for herself and some kind of curried stew for Garrus and Machaera. Now the three of them were sitting on the floor of Machaera's hotel room—the room that was supposed to have been for Garrus—eating dinner.

Shepard could be grateful that at least things had gone well with her and Garrus today, but damn it, didn't normal people get at least a weekend to enjoy their romantic getaways? It would have been really nice to spend tonight having dinner with Garrus at a nice restaurant. Instead, she'd barely gotten herself an official romantic relationship before having to deal with in-law drama, and now here she was, eating more takeout. Her eyes flickered across the circle to Machaera.

The female turian seemed no worse for wear after her run-in with Garrus' father. She had greeted them at the door, quiet at first, examining Shepard and Garrus closely; but once the food had been opened, her entire demeanour had changed. Now she was enthusiastically wolfing down her meal, though at Shepard's question, her gaze slid sideways to Garrus.

Garrus rolled his eyes. "Don't you start on me."

"I don't want him coming around here again, looking for you," Machaera said tersely before resuming her assault on the stew.

Shepard studied the female turian, remembering what Garrus had told her…that Machaera was apparently bonded to his father. Talk about awkward situations. Shepard could only imagine what it would be like to be caught in a love that felt more like a prison, unable to break the ties binding you to another person, no matter how much they hurt you.

"I'll comm him tomorrow. Tonight Commander Shepard and I are…" Garrus' gaze fell on her and his mandibles twitched. "….going out," he said cautiously, "to a prior engagement."

Well. What trick did Garrus have up his sleeve now?

Shepard thought she saw Machaera's eyes narrow, but the female turian said nothing.

#

"You think she's still awake?" Shepard asked several hours later.

Garrus squeezed her hand as they walked up the hotel's hallway. His plan had worked out very well so far; he could only hope his luck would hold.

Full of take-out, they had gone to a little shop that served both levo and dextro after-dinner beverages—tea, tisane, and that coffee stuff that Shepard favoured, along with a variety of snack foods and desserts. Ah, all the conversation of a dinner without stuffing themselves too full to…

Garrus had dared to snag one of the fruits from Shepard's dessert plate—a hayberry? Something like that… She'd taken it from his fingers with her mouth and all of a sudden he'd lost interest in the last dregs of his beverage.

Now here they were, hoping they'd lingered long enough in the shop for Machera to drop into a deep sleep.

Garrus pressed his head against Machera's door. "I don't hear anything, but just to be on the safe side we'd better keep the noise down."

Shepard made a sound of protest. Garrus knew what she meant. He wasn't exactly thrilled at the unexpected constraints on their activities, but at least they'd managed to get some private time together.

By the time he'd stepped away from Machera's door, Shepard already had their room door open and was beckoning him with the Alliance hand signal for "double time" and a big grin on her face.

#

Shepard tugged at Garrus' shirt, eager to get it off, and…

A loud knocking made her drop the garment and curse under her breath.

It wasn't Machaera. The knock was coming from the hallway door, not the connecting passage between their room and the female turian's. Shepard was tempted to say to hell with it, but she didn't want the maid opening the door with a master key only to find Commander Shepard and a turian all over one another. Reluctantly, Shepard pulled away from Garrus, straightened her clothes, strode to the door, and opened it.

The person on the other side of the door was clearly not the maid. He was an older turian, well-dressed in civilian clothes that nevertheless gave off a military bearing. Shepard wondered if that was just a turian thing or if this man somehow exceeded the already martial norm for turians.

Shepard was about to politely inquire if he'd gotten the wrong room when a look at his face made her pause.

She was far from an expert on turian facial tattoos, but she'd traced her fingers over the blue paint on Garrus' cheeks, nose and mandibles often enough to know Vakarian when she saw it. A closer look indicated the similarities didn't stop at the paint. This man's mandibles were thicker and shorter, his fringe wider, and his facial plates pitted with age, but other than that he might well have been Garrus' mirror-image. Shepard knew suddenly, without a doubt, what Garrus would look like thirty-odd years into the future. The turian regarded her with pale blue hawk's-eyes.

"You must be Commander Shepard," he said.

She'd realized she'd been expecting him to sound like Garrus too. His voice was deeper and less melodic. "I'm sorry, you have me at a disadvantage," she said, stalling for time, because the last thing she needed Garrus' father to see was his son half-dressed in her room. In her teenage years, Shepard had not had parents to walk in on her making out with her boyfriends, nor had she had boyfriends to make out with, but she now understood exactly how getting caught by parents felt.

"Bastion Vakarian," the turian replied formally. "I was wondering if you might have any knowledge of my son Garrus Vakarian's current whereabouts."

From the way he said it, Shepard intuited that Bastion was well aware that she knew Garrus' location. There was no point in lying...

..._though_, she thought, _I'm not going to tell him_ in my bed.

She knew very little about Bastion Vakarian save that relations between him and his son were somewhat..._strained_ was putting it kindly. He had been the reason why Garrus never went through Spectre training the first time he was nominated; Bastion, a top C-Sec officer, had disapproved of Spectres and their extra-legal freedoms to bend the rules during their missions. Garrus had said little else about his father, and nothing else about any other family members, although apparently his family was quite large.

Having no family of her own, Shepard realized she had not thought about the effect their relationship might have on Garrus' family. Her concerns about their relationship had only been about _him_, and whether he would be happy with a human for a partner. Now, Shepard was struck by a sudden wave of doubt as she realized that their choices would affect more people than just themselves.

"He's here," she replied coolly. "Let me go next door and get him." Behind her back, she gave Garrus a hand signal indicating that he should cross through the connector into Machaera's room.

"Ah," the elder turian said with a nod. "Which room is his?"

Shepard indicated the door to the left.

"Much appreciated. Have a pleasant evening, Commander."

#

Garrus did not bother waiting for his father to knock. He took a quick glance at Machaera sleeping in her bed, oblivious to his presence, still wearing her clothing and those ridiculous gauntlets. The female turian had lost some of the hardened, hunted look that Garrus was accustomed to seeing on her; she looked much softer in her sleep.

Garrus knew how quickly that expression would disappear if she saw his father. He didn't want to deal with the fallout of Bastion knowing that he'd been in contact with Machaera before his immediate family, even if it had been Machaera who sought him out first. It would just make a bad situation that much worse.

Taking a deep breath, Garrus opened the door, stepped out into the hall and closed the portal behind him. He knew he had to face his family sometime; he just wished it hadn't been now.

Bastion Vakarian looked older and smaller than Garrus remembered. His plates were duller and a bit more age-lined, but his eyes were still twin points of blue fire, cutting and cold.

"Garrus. It's good to see you again," the old man said formally.

"Likewise," Garrus replied.

And the truth of the conversation went unspoken. _You've been out of touch for years_, he said with the set of his body, _and still you delayed in returning the message I left with the cleaning staff_, he added with his folded arms. _I'm disappointed in you_, his eyes proclaimed.

Garrus answered him with squared shoulders, _I'm not a child any more_, flexing talons, _and you can't tell me what to do_, and firmly set mandibles, _I have my own life that comes first._

"I'm hoping you can at least join us for dinner tomorrow night," Bastion said in a tone that made it clear it wasn't a request.

"Us?"

"Your mother and siblings."

Garrus felt his eyes widen. "You're all here on the Citadel?"

Bastion folded his arms. "Your younger sister has just taken a post here with the Embassy, which I'm sure you don't know about. Still, yes, we are all here for her induction ceremony, which is convenient." His eyes narrowed as though he were plotting something. "Your mother has missed you too."

Bastion Vakarian, master of the guilt trip.

Garrus wanted to spend time with Shepard but…he'd have the rest of his life with her. Would it be wrong to set aside an evening for his family, particularly after he'd been away for so long? Regardless of how he felt about his father, and his pain-in-the-ass oldest half-brother Martello, he had to admit he missed the others.

"Faustus and his wife have a son and a second daughter," Bastion added, twisting the knife. Garrus had a nephew and niece he hadn't even realized existed. "Domini is about to make Inspector at C-Sec." The knife twisted further. Domini—just a year younger than Garrus, they had been both close friends and rivals for their parents' affections, as Bastion constantly compared them to one another. At first Garrus had shone while Domini, struggling, fell behind. Garrus had always wondered if his mother had favoured Domini, while his father, for most of his life, had favoured Garrus. Now, Garrus bit his teeth and tried not to feel resentful that his brother had finally managed to become the son his parents had wanted.

Bastion continued, "Solange is very excited about her new job, and Aleron has finished school. I'm sure they would all like to see you." The old turian's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Garrus wondered if that same expression was what criminals had seen in the second before the old man arrested them—_I have you and we both know it_.

"Uh…I should be okay with that, but I need to talk to Commander Shepard," he stammered.

"Of course," Bastion replied with a raised eye ridge. "Every good turian needs his commander's leave. Would you like me to accompany you? In case your Commander does not understand what family means to a turian?"

"I…" Garrus swallowed. "Don't think she'll have a problem with it." His mind raced.

_Commander Shepard and I are a hunting pair. _He had to tell his family. He had to tell his father.

Spirits, he needed time to figure out how to say those words. By the time he'd considered, then rejected, every opener from _She understands more than you would _think to _Shepard and I are already family_, and finally decided to just spit it out and be done with it, Bastion had already nodded his confirmation and taken his leave. Garrus watched his father retreating…no.

Withdrawing, perhaps.

Bastion was never the one forced to retreat.

#

"Have fun," Shepard said, doing her best to sound upbeat.

Garrus gave her a look of pure misery as he opened their hotel room door. "I'll be back as soon as I can," he whispered.

He was supposed to be going out to visit his family. His demeanour was better suited to a man headed to his own execution. It ought to be funny, but she really didn't like the hollow look in his eyes.

She wasn't used to Garrus Vakarian, of all people, with that kind of beaten expression. The Garrus she knew was a driven man, passionate and proactive, meeting challenges head-on. His intensity ranged from a low smoulder to a fiery fury, but it had always been alive in him, burning. This new Garrus seemed helpless, smothered under the weight of an insurmountable force.

For that reason alone she wanted to go with him, to support him, to protect him…but it wasn't her place to intrude. Garrus had told her the night before that he needed to see his family and deal with the consequences of his two year absence.

Funny how not that long ago she'd been shocked and upset with _him_ for squandering the gift of a family. She'd been selfish, she realized. She'd felt jealous, and assumed that he had what she'd always wanted—a family to call her own.

But she'd never dreamed of having a family that could crush Garrus Vakarian into submission.

"I'll be waiting for you," she said, and then stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder. "Garrus. It'll be all right."

His eyes met hers, and she thought she saw a faint spark stirring in their pale blue depths.

"I love you," he said, suddenly, fiercely, as he hugged her close.

"Love you too, Garrus."

And then he was out the door and gone, swiftly, as though if he had held her one instant longer, he might never have left at all.

#

As he followed his father into the family apartments-the same ones that Bastion had inhabited when he'd been an investigator with C-Sec-Garrus tried to stop thinking about Shepard.

They'd sent Machaera out on a series of errands that had given the two of them an opportunity for a long, lazy bath in their room's whirlpool tub, and the natural consequences of that activity. It had been great, but Garrus had wondered if their entire life would be moments of intimacy snatched from the maelstrom of greater events.

_Probably, and would he have it any other way?_

Garrus barely hid the snicker as he realized that there was, indeed, a gift to be had in knowing oneself.

And then another maelstrom was upon him—his brothers, his sisters, his mother.

Garrus had to admit that he was genuinely glad to see his sisters and his two youngest brothers again. His older half-brothers, however-the children of his mother's previous relationship-kept their distance. Martello, the older, gave Garrus a cool once-over and then turned his attention to his wife, not even deigning to notice the scars on Garrus' face. Faustus, the younger of the two, glared at Garrus with open hostility.

None of this was new, and Garrus didn't particularly care. His elder half-sister and his younger siblings were the family he was closest to, and they were mobbing him, leaving little room for anything else. Domini showed no interest in lording his victory over his brother and rival as he swept Garrus into a crushing hug. Garrus was surprised to see Aleron, the youngest, now dressed in the uniform of a cadet; he'd been gone so long he'd forgotten about Aleron's fifteenth birthday. Once again, he felt guilt chewing at him.

_If you take up with Shepard, you'll be cutting yourself off from your family._

_Siblings can't take the place of partners._

Garrus pushed these thoughts from his mind. He didn't want to think about the fact that either decision was going to result in heartache.

No.

There was no point in pretending that he didn't already know what his decision would be. It was simply a matter of tying up loose ends at this point.

He would enjoy this evening…savour this time with his mother and siblings…and then…and then…

And then he'd do what had to be done.

Bastion Vakarian stood behind the biggest chair at the head of the table. He gestured for Garrus to take a seat at his right side.

Garrus watched out of the corner of his eye as his siblings arranged themselves with martial precision around the table: his elder sister across the table from him, Aleron beside her, followed by Faustus. His mother took the foot of the table, flanked by Martello and his wife on one side and his sisters, Noleta and Solange, on the other. Domini took a chair next to Faustus. Why was there an empty chair still beside Garrus?

_Oh, no._

Garrus groaned as Bastion announced, "I've taken the liberty of inviting someone to join us here tonight." The door to the room opened, and a petite, slender female turian took a step forward into the room, tilting her head and smiling shyly.

Garrus had been in this situation far too many times before. He shot his father an angry look, but Bastion Vakarian simply arched his eye ridges imperiously and said, "Garrus, I'd like you to meet Pia Mellatrix, one of my old colleague's daughters. Pia, this is my son Garrus."

Garrus stood there helplessly as the girl said, "Pleased to meet you." Softly. Hopefully.

Damn, but Garrus was annoyed. He should be with Shepard right now, not enduring yet another of his father's attempts at matchmaking—during his first reunion with his mother and siblings in two years, no less.

He gritted his teeth and wondered if Shepard's God might be willing to loan a turian some patience.

#

Shepard's attempt to entertain herself in Garrus' absence was not turning out to be particularly successful.

She hadn't had much time to loll about watching vids or holos, and now that she did find herself with time on her hands, she was discovering that the current shows were just as insipid and dull as those she remembered from two years ago. Unable to keep her attention on any of them, she tried logging into the extranet, but when she found herself signing up for a virtual plantation on the popular, but totally mindless, "FarmVerse—_The game where you grow crops and raise adorable baby animals across a thousand worlds!_", she knew her quest was hopeless. Her heart was with Garrus, and her body was just filling time until he returned.

She felt a churning sensation of dread in the pit of her stomach. Did she really think Garrus would cave in the face of his father's disapproval? She either trusted him, or she didn't.

_I trust him._

She just didn't want to have to help him through something that was certain to hurt him, not when he'd already been through so much already, what with Spectre training and Sidonis and the Collectors and…

…_And your death_.

She really, really didn't want to think about that, and for a moment she was grateful when she heard the gentle rapping on the connecting door between their rooms. Machaera apparently wanted company.

"Come in," Shepard said.

Any relief she felt at the distraction vanished when she saw the look in the female turian's eyes.

#

Garrus toyed with his food, wishing this meal would just hurry up and end. He didn't want to be cruel to Pia, who was clearly struggling to conduct herself in an exemplary fashion despite her obvious nervousness. She wasn't to blame for this situation. Garrus took a deep breath and asked her some questions about herself, and forced himself to eat while he listened to her talk.

By the Spirits, what had his father been thinking? Pia was a sweet girl, but of all the women that Bastion had tried to set him up with, Pia was probably the worst match yet. She ran a center for children on Palaven, for Spirits' sake, looking after the little ones while their parents were at work. Hauling her all over the galaxy would kill her; abandoning her on Palaven wouldn't be much better. She'd never even been in the military—she had joined the civil service right out of school. She was almost ten years younger than he was, and they had absolutely nothing in common.

And she was looking at him as though the sight of him—scars and all—both terrified and fascinated her, like an insect in front of a flame.

Garrus, unfortunately, found himself running out of questions to ask her, and a peek at his family's plates showed that while he'd lost his appetite, the other turians were taking their time savouring their meals. He ground his teeth and tried to stop his mandibles from flickering as Pia began to talk, quietly at first, about how she hoped to have a big family of her own someday. Bastion alternated between beaming approvingly at Pia and shooting Garrus meaningful looks.

Enough was enough. Garrus had no idea why his father insisted on treating him like a raw recruit, but he had to put his foot down. He felt sorry for Pia, but he needed to nip this situation before she got comfortable imagining him as the father of all those babies she wanted.

Garrus leaned forward and asked Aleron if he'd learned sniping in military college yet.

The boy perked right up, while Noleta shot Garrus a confused glance. He turned his head and looked down the table, but at the same time he gave her a wink. She nodded very slightly and chimed in with the weapons talk; having been a weapons systems officer before leaving active military service, she had a lot to say on this topic. Pia, on the other hand, appeared bewildered and sat there quietly, nodding and eating.

"Where'd you get those scars?" Aleron blurted.

Garrus bared his teeth in a vicious smile as an idea suddenly occurred to him. He began to tell his youngest sibling all about his battle with the gunship, but in this version he made sure to discuss all possible violence and gore with great enthusiasm and very graphic descriptions. His brother's eyes went wide as saucers while Pia began to shrink farther and farther away from him. Garrus conveniently left out the reason why he'd been fighting gangs in the first place, and where-he didn't need his father interrupting him for a lecture. Bastion was probably listening in, but Garrus didn't dare look at him; he had to pretend to be so wrapped up in his tale that he'd utterly forgotten his father's presence.

"Wow," Aleron said. "I hope I can do stuff like that someday."

Garrus took this as a perfect opportunity to give Aleron some sniping advice, complete with personal examples. Truth be told, he was actually starting to have _fun_ with this wicked plan of his, and he tried to hide his smirk as he began embellishing his tale with even more lurid detail.

"And then I shot the bastard and his head just...exploded. Blood and brains _everywhere_," Garrus said, waving his hands for emphasis.

Pia rose to her feet and bolted from the room. The poor girl looked ill, and Garrus felt a twinge of guilt. He hadn't been very nice, and he was sure the young woman would have a lot to say to her own family and friends about the psychopath she'd been set up with.

All of a sudden, alarms started going off in his head as his instincts screamed at him of impending danger. He slid his eyes sideways and saw, as expected, Bastion Vakarian scowling at him. "Are you quite done?" his father growled.

"Yes, sir." The words were barely out of his mouth when Garrus felt a flare of rage at how weak and submissive he'd sounded. Yes, he knew he was out of line, but damnation, so was his father, manoeuvring his adult son into this situation.

"My office. Now," Bastion said tersely.

Garrus shot a glance at Domini. "I guess this means dinner is over?" he quipped, and the other turian gave him a knowing smirk.

#

Machaera's amber eyes fixed on Shepard and gave her the sudden impression of being watched through crosshairs. The sensation immediately got her hackles up; she wasn't anyone's target, and she rose to her feet, wondering how the female turian could look so aggressive just standing there in the doorway, hands at her sides. It had to be the intensity of her gaze, or the firm set in her mandibles.

"I know about you and Garrus," Machaera said tersely.

Shepard hoped she managed to disguise the shock she felt. Had Machaera been lurking in the other room, pressing her head to the door to hear the two of them when they…

"It's not a secret," Shepard replied, icy-cool. If the female turian had come over solely to express her disapproval or disgust, she should have stayed in her own room. She let a hint of frustration with their "third wheel" creep into her tone. "And I don't see how it's any of your business."

Machaera arched one eye ridge. "Oh? And so you're aware that it's actually public knowledge?"

Shepard blinked.

"At least, it is to any turians who see you two together. Why do you think he didn't invite you to dinner with him?"

Shepard had been wondering that herself. She'd suggested trying to get to know Bastion Vakarian before the bomb was dropped, but Garrus had shot her down. Now she knew why. Apparently his instinctive behaviours would give him away before he had a chance to speak.

And Machaera wasn't done.

"I'm not certain if humans are familiar enough with our body language, but anyone who _is _will know at a glance. And word gets around. You do realize a reporter stopped by while you were gone…a Miss Al-Jiliani, I believe her name was?"

She felt her mouth go dry. Everyone…?

Shepard watched Machaera's eyes narrow. The turian had evidently seen some sign of weakness in Shepard's expression and was now closing in for the kill.

"I have only one thing to say to you. You break his heart—I break your neck."

#

Bastion Vakarian had redone the inside of his office in the years that Garrus had been gone. The younger turian glanced around, taking in the thick carpet, the huge, heavy, plenkwood writing desk and chairs, the shiny and ornate brass lamps, and the brocaded curtains. Only one thing remained the same as he remembered from his youth: the mexta blade hanging in a rack behind Bastion's chair. The sword looked more out of place than ever amidst the brand-new furnishings, its blade pitted and the red ribbons on its hilt faded and wrinkled with age.

Garrus didn't know where Bastion had gotten the mexta. The Vakarians were a practical clan, given to rifles for battle and pistols for duels; nobody in his family used blades seriously any longer. Garrus wondered how old the sword was. Perhaps it had belonged to one of his long-ago ancestors, though if it had, Garrus would have expected his father to regale his children with accompanying stories. Instead, all he'd ever told them was to never, ever touch it. This, of course, had simply encouraged Garrus to touch it when no one else was looking. Every stroke of his claws on that ancient sword was a silent, invisible act of defiance.

That the mexta had been used for more than display was not in doubt. Garrus had clambered up to take a look soon after his promotion to inspector, and his experience at C-Sec had told him what a well-used blade looked like. The mexta's edge was worn back from regular resharpenings and notched from hard blows upon Spirits only knew what.

Garrus stood at attention before his father's desk now, staring up at the mexta and seething inside.

He was a blooded warrior, for all the Spirits' sakes. He wasn't a child, or a recruit, or a third-tier citizen who'd never seen actual combat. He'd helped stop Saren and save the Citadel, and yet his father still treated him as though he were still in War College.

And yet he held his tongue as Bastion circled his desk, hands clasped behind his back, until the elder turian faced him across the smooth plenkwood surface and spoke.

"What am I going to do with you?" Bastion Vakarian demanded.

Garrus pressed his mandibles together and said nothing.

"Look at you. You're not a boy any more. When are you going to start taking your familial duty seriously?"

Garrus waited, but Bastion was looking at him, silently insisting on an answer.

He spoke carefully. "I'm not in a position where I'm capable of properly supporting a family."

"Because you put yourself there." Bastion rested his hands on the edge of his desk, trying and failing to look relaxed. "Garrus, I want you to think about this from my point of view. I had colleagues who were trying to match up their sons and daughters while they were still in War College. I didn't do that." The elder turian drew in a ragged breath. His voice was hoarse as he said, "You were always the most promising of my children, Garrus. You do know that, correct?"

Garrus nodded. Yes, he knew. It was the reason for his older half-brothers' enmity. They had tried to earn their way into Bastion's good graces by their deeds, only to find themselves shown up by Garrus. His half-sister, on the other hand, had not seemed nearly as interested in Bastion's goodwill, contenting herself with simply being acceptable. As a result, they had become friends and not merely siblings.

"So," Bastion continued, "I let you learn and grow for yourself during War College, and during your military service, which is not a particularly beneficial time for settling down at any rate. I made no inquiries until you had left the armed forces and entered police training, and when you said you had no interest in a family so soon, I accepted your decision. If anything, I _respected _your ambition."

Garrus felt unsettled. He had been expecting another cuff upside the head and The Lecture; instead Bastion was taking the time to explain himself, and although Garrus wasn't comfortable with what he was saying, the fact remained that he was being eminently rational from a turian point of view.

"So then you were in C-Sec, a rising young star," Bastion continued, "and that was when the time was right for you to take a wife and start a family. Do you have any idea how hard I worked to introduce you to well-bred, accomplished, eligible young ladies whom I thought you might like?"

Garrus gritted his teeth. "Which makes me wonder what you were thinking when you invited Pia to dinner," he retorted, realizing even as he spoke the words that Bastion had indeed tried to set him up with women more like him during his C-Sec days: soldiers, or law enforcement officers, or mechanically-minded women who shared his interest in tinkering with equipment.

"You're not the catch you used to be," Bastion growled back, and the vehemence in his voice caused Garrus to take a step backwards. Garrus felt his throat constrict as he recognized too late that he'd betrayed weakness to his father, and of course, Bastion struck at it.

"Look at you! Three years ago you were on the fast track to an executorship—all you had to do was break a few bad habits and get some experience under your belt. Now..." Bastion snorted. "Your apartment was repossessed. Your bank account's empty. You look like a speeder wreck. Spirits only know where you've _been_ the past year and a half. And you flunked out of Spectre training—not that I'm exactly sorry to see that career avenue closed off for you, but I would much rather have had you left of your own accord than getting kicked out for being a failure. You're not stupid and you're not incompetent, so what in the hell is the matter with you?"

Garrus pinched his mandibles so tightly that they hurt, and as he did so, wondered why. Why didn't he just come out and tell his father that he was in love with Commander Shepard, and if he didn't like it, to cram it? Why not say it and get it done with? And yet his instincts told him to keep his jaw shut, to defend his deepest treasures by hiding them so far inside that his family could not even guess at their presence.

"I noticed you didn't have any ale at dinner," Bastion said.

_Shit. Here comes The Lecture._

But Bastion surprised him once again. "So you've clearly addressed your problem and solved it yourself," he continued. "Good for you."

Garrus struggled to hide his shock. His father had obviously done some snooping into Garrus' personal records, and though they were supposed to be confidential, classifications didn't hold up well to inquiries from C-Sec investigators...not even retired investigators. Bastion had missed the mark, though, in that he'd decided that the alcoholism was the root cause of Garrus' problems, instead of merely a symptom. The senior turian had possibly not drawn the link between Garrus' failure and Shepard's death.

Garrus felt no need to enlighten him.

"You're not beyond redemption," Bastion said, starting to pace, betraying his own agitation. "But you need to recognize that you are no longer in the bargaining position you once were. The more accomplished women are going to want accomplished men, not unemployed ex-Spectre candidates with nothing to their name but what their clan provides them."

"I'm not unemployed," Garrus retorted, crossing his arms, wishing he didn't sound like a petulant teenager.

Bastion raised an eyebrow. "Ah, yes, your association with Commander Shepard. That's not doing your eligibility any favours, either."

Garrus snarled reflexively, and braced himself for a fight, but again his father caught him off guard and said quietly, "I understand you are pursuing your concept of justice in a manner that, no doubt, satisfies you, and that is your decision to make. Just realize that once again it is going to be much more difficult to find an appropriate woman willing to either endure your mercenary lifestyle at your side or be patient with a mate who is gone and incommunicado for more than a year at a time." Bastion's disapproving gaze fell on Garrus full force. "And as most mercenary women are unsuitable for a commandant's son, I am left with women like Pia, who would be able to raise your children in your absence."

Garrus drew in a breath, refusing to lose his temper, not wanting to capitulate control to his father. "I notice that all through dinner you never once asked me where I might have been in the past two years."

Bastion drank in air in a gesture disturbingly like Garrus' own. He looked his son straight in the eye and said, "Because I don't want to know."

Garrus was completely blindsided by his father's unexpected and jarring honesty. His mouth gaped open as Bastion continued. "I can already guess that I wouldn't approve of your activities, and you can no doubt intuit that I am disappointed by your disappearance and its...results." He folded his arms. "Regardless, you came back of our own accord, in...more or less one piece, and the clan is happy to have you rejoin us. I am willing to let bygones be bygones, Garrus. You are not the only turian who made reckless mistakes in his youth."

Garrus felt that he ought to be pleased, but he had enough police instinct left to tell him that there was a guillotine waiting to drop.

And then it did.

"This is, of course, conditional on the terms that you begin doing your duty to this family."

Garrus felt ill, but he had to see this confrontation through to its conclusion. "Which means what, exactly? Leaving the Normandy? Moving back to the family compound on Palaven? Rejoining C-Sec?"

Bastion braced his hands on his hips. "You're an adult, Garrus. I should not have to dictate to you the terms of proper behaviour. You know exactly what is expected of a turian citizen."

"Funny, I thought Clan Vakarian had higher standards than the norm," Garrus shot back before he could help himself.

Bastion narrowed his eyes, but otherwise concealed his reaction. "You are not the norm. I have had to come to terms with that. Do I need to spell this out? I am offering you a compromise. Do your duty. Start a family. Get a job that will enable you to support them. I accept that I cannot force you to follow my path and..." The elder turian drew in a deep breath. "And that your personal life is your own business. If it is that you are interested in...other men..."

Garrus thought his jaw couldn't drop open any wider. So much for that theory.

"You think I'm gay?" he choked.

Bastion gave him a not very well disguised look of disdain. "Frankly I'm not certain what to think of you."

"I'm not gay!" Garrus protested, trying not to think about the fact that he was apparently a raging xenophile, at least where his commander was concerned.

"Then whatever the reason you've been so resistant to the idea of marriage, I don't want to hear it, but you need to learn to separate your public and private life. Fulfill your role as a citizen and keep your personal affairs discreet and I...I will not question you about them."

Garrus had never seen his father so conciliatory before. Growing up, Garrus could not count how many times he had heard his father say that those who lived under his roof lived by his rules, and if they didn't like it, they could get out. Noleta had gotten out when she was only thirteen; they'd been estranged for years, his parents and his half-sister, and he had been honestly surprised to see her present today. Apparently Bastion had been compromising quite a bit in an attempt to meet Garrus halfway.

And yet it was only halfway. Garrus could not condone the idea of going through the motions of marrying a woman he did not care for and producing children, only to abandon them for months or years at a time to fly about the galaxy on the Normandy. And leaving Shepard was not and never would be an option, whether or not their relationship worked out. He had given his vow and he would keep it, even if he lost his family in the process. He had spent more than a decade of his adult life trying so hard to be someone else: the man that the Vakarians or the Hierarchy or his instructors or any number of other people wanted him to be. It was past time he started to be the man he wanted to become. He still wasn't entirely sure who that person was, but he did know this: he'd never felt better about being Garrus Vakarian than when he was at Shepard's side.

"I understand," Garrus said slowly, because _understanding _and _agreeing_ were not the same thing.

He needed to tell his father the truth, but this was not the right occasion. He needed time to regroup, to figure out what he was going to say, to make the best possible case for his mother's and siblings' sakes. And most of all, he needed to make it through the gauntlet of awkward and heartwrenching goodbyes, and make it home to his partner. Shepard was always good at solving impossible situations; she could help him find some way to salvage this one.


	6. Chapter 6: The Patriot Game

Author's Note: Since I started this story before "Lair of the Shadow Broker" was released, I'm not going to try to rework the whole story halfway through in order to suit the revelations in LOTSB, though when appropriate/able I borrow elements of the canon. I ask all my readers to simply consider this an alternate universe and enjoy it on those terms.

To those readers who play or read the Cerberus Daily News roleplaying boards, Machaera comes from the same homeworld as "Sicaria" and as a result the two characters have similar origins. Since they're both my characters, there's no plagiarism going on here and no need for hate mail (at least in that regard; if you're not enjoying my story, that's a different matter). I intend to keep the two worlds—my fiction and the roleplay—separate, though as a matter of interest, I think of Machaera and Sicaria as second-cousins.

**Closer to Home**

Chapter the Sixth: The Patriot Game

"Is that a threat?"

Shepard gazed into the amber eyes of Machaera Perihelion, turian and terrorist and bondmate of Garrus Vakarian's father, searching for answers. It wasn't every day that someone vowed to break her neck, even if it were in the name of such a worthy cause as defending Garrus' heart.

The female turian looked back just as coolly and replied, "It is a statement of fact, Commander Shepard."

Shepard glanced at Machaera, taking the turian's measure. She was lean, wiry, not all that bulky by turian standards, but she was still taller than a human, and turians were notoriously tough. Shepard still thought she'd have the edge in a fight—she'd headbutted krogan, after all. And yet Machaera, who had to know Shepard's reputation, did not seem fazed in the least. Shepard wondered if it were false bravado or if the turian woman in the colourful wrap was more dangerous than she appeared.

Machaera did not flinch from Shepard's examination. "Whether or not Iapprove of your relationship with Garrus is really not the question. It's gone beyond the point where you can take it back." The turian pressed her mandibles against her face. "You _do _understand that, don't you?"

"Garrus explained to me what a bonded pair is, yes."

Machaera nodded. "And…?"

Shepard put her hands on her hips—was every turian going to grill her this way? "And Garrus is my mate and I love him," she said, point-blank. "I would never _want_ to take it back." Her eyes narrowed. "Not even if _some_ people don't like it."

Machaera tipped back her head and laughed, loudly and heartily.

Shepard cocked her head, confused.

"Well played, Commander, well played." The turian's eyes sparkled. "Garrus' father is going to have a complete fit, you know." Her smile widened. "Take pictures."

The turian's mood changed so quickly that it left Shepard dazed in its wake. "So you don't mind?" Shepard asked warily.

Machaera's face grew serious as she sat on a corner of the bed. "The truth?" she asked.

Shepard nodded.

"I…I don't understand the appeal, in all honesty, but Garrus' choices are his own. I am more concerned that he does not end up like me, than who…or what…his mate is."

Shepard took a deep breath and sat down beside the turian woman. "I said I'd always be there when he needs me. I meant it. If he needs me all the time, I'm okay with that." She smiled softly. "I need him."

Machaera nodded, though she still seemed unconvinced. "I heard humans fell out of love."

"Some of them do," Shepard said quietly. "I never have." It was true. She bit her tongue before she could tell Machaera that everyone she cared about had always left her first.

For a while they sat side-by-side in silence, while Shepard wondered what was going through Machaera's mind. If Bastion Vakarian was going to be the problem she anticipated him to be, she could really use another turian on her side—someone who could take an interview from Al-Jiliani and say that a cross-species relationship was no big deal. On the other hand, she was more than a little concerned by the vague hints that Garrus had made about Machaera's criminal past. Shepard had problems enough with the Council without publically allying herself with a figure of questionable reputation.

"Machaera?" Shepard asked, marveling at how loud her voice sounded.

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something personal?"

"You can try," the turian countered warily.

"Garrus told me you had some kind of history with the turian separatist movement."

"Yes," she answered, sounding even more defensive.

"I don't really know much about it," Shepard admitted. "I know the turians were embroiled in a civil war long ago, between the outer colonies and the Hierarchy based on your homeworld of Palaven, and that the Hierarchy won. And I heard about Facinus dropping a starship on the city of Vallum on Taetrus, not so long ago. Other than that…" She shrugged helplessly. "They gave me the short notes on every alien species, but not any in-depth history."

Machaera smiled wryly. "Is a history lesson what you're looking for?"

"Huh. Not exactly." She took a deep breath, trying to articulate what, exactly, she was seeking. "I suppose I'm trying to think of a polite way to ask why Garrus was so worried about you being on the Citadel, and how, if you're really an outlaw, you ended up with Bastion Vakarian of all people."

"Ah." The female turian sat back on the bed, tucking her feet up under the colourful hem of her flowing wrap dress. "Let me tell you a story, then. First, though, I should ask, do you have that quaint alien idea of all turians as unquestioning drones, utterly servile to their superiors, all the way up to the feet of the Primarch on Palaven?"

Shepard snorted. "I've fought enough turian gangsters, criminals and thugs to know better. Your species has its outlaws just like any other."

Machaera smiled. "Just so."

"But you don't strike me as a thug."

"I like to think I'm not, Shepard. I am a loyal citizen of somewhere that is not Palaven."

Shepard settled herself as well. "So tell me how that happens."

The turian flared her mandibles, and Shepard realized just how a turian smile must look to people who'd never seen the aliens before—all those sharp teeth on display. Maybe it was the feral light in Machaera's eyes that made Shepard think she looked dangerous, when she had never found Garrus' smile disturbing in the slightest.

"Turians are community-minded people, Shepard. Palaven would have you believe that our deviant personalities become barefaced mercenaries in the Terminus, while the rest of our citizens become those servile drones from popular stereotypes. And perhaps, long ago, this might have been true: a single dominant civilization on Palaven, a handful of raiders in the wastelands. But all that changed when we began to colonize the stars.

"Some planets—those easily accessed by mass relay, or those with unique features that drew Palaven's particular interest—remained closely in touch with their homeworld. Others, especially the farming colonies on the fringes of turian space, were mostly ignored as long as they shipped their regular quota of produce to the homeworld in a timely manner. And, as generations went by, those who were born on the colonies found their allegiance shifting. Their communities _were_ their colonies, the people they lived with and worked with, the land they tamed, the cultures they created.

The colonial governor—for many of the colonies did not rate a Primarch until they had a certain number of people and a certain gross annual product—was a big fish in a small pond, wielding great power on his homeworld while being mostly ignored on Palaven, where many of the governors spent most of their time greasing bureaucratic wheels in an attempt to get noticed and transferred to more lucrative posts. The colonies began appointing their own Executors in the governors' absences and the governors for the most part accepted these appointments, because they meant that a local would be in power and on planet keeping things running smoothly, giving the governors more time on the homeworld. Before long, though, the colonists began considering their Executor—who was usually also a tribal leader—as the "true head of state" and the governor as merely a figurehead. And, left to their own devices for so long, the Executors began taking more and more liberties with their position, acting as any head of state would do. For generations, Palaven did not care—until we took into our own hands the right to wage war.

At that point the colonies were, to my mind, fully independent nations, owing their allegiance to their Executor-Chieftains and their own people, having nothing in common with either the other colonies or with Palaven save that we were all the same species. And so, when diplomacy and treaty could not solve who had the rights to what moons or which spacelanes, or when one colony blockaded another colony's access to the mass relay, or when one colony began endangering its neighbours by offering itself as a haven for batarian raiders and other scum—we went to war."

Machaera's eyes narrowed. "Palaven would have you believe that we were nothing but savages slaughtering each other. I would remind you that nations from time out of mind—yours as well as ours—have used warfare to settle conflict. Palaven's grudge was that they felt they were the only ones with the right to declare war—that, after so many years of leaving us fend for ourselves. We were honestly shocked when the Unification Wars began. We thought we had been set loose on our own long ago, our Governor a mere formality, a relic of a bygone age."

Machaera stopped to draw breath and Shepard thought over what the turian had said. She used the word "we" as though she were including herself in this story of colonials who had fought hundreds of years ago; it said a lot about Machaera's outlook on life.

"I will skip over the history that you can download from any library site. Palaven crushed each colony in turn and tightened the reins of power, and we, Palaven's offspring grown to adulthood, were now forced back into the role of children, sitting at our parents' feet." She snorted. "Some of us were unbroken even in defeat. Rather than swear allegiance to Palaven, we left our homeworlds, choosing to begin again on new colonies beyond the reaches of turian space where we hoped that we could be left in peace to live our lives as we would. Some of us went to what is now Invictus, others to Lyonnesse, while my people arrived on a world we called Solregit.

"We were, of course, not so lucky as to be left alone. We spent generations cutting farms out of the wilderness, building roads, constructing a few towns. Then Palaven, ever expanding its reach, decided to help itself to this unclaimed planet. They drove out everyone who was not a turian and appointed a colonial governor. They even tried to name the place, but fortunately our original name stuck.

"It was a small world in a small system, lying close to the system's sun. The equator, in fact, is nothing but scorched desert. The south is home to jungle and the planetary capital; the north, my people's refuge, is hardwood forest and plain. And beneath…" The turian's jaw clicked shut. "Beneath all of it is a series of rich element zero deposits—a geographical feature of which my ancestors were unaware when they settled Solregit, and a feature that cursed us to repeat history all over again."

Shepard waited while Machaera paused to collect her thoughts. She thought of the history she'd been taught in school about the place where she'd been born, the United North American States. Before the unification of the states, they'd been three different countries, only one of which had been willingly granted independence by its founding empire. The other two had needed to resort to war to earn their freedom, and those wars were still celebrated every year. If that was the tradition from which she'd descended, could she really blame the turian for doing the same thing? On the other hand, Shepard had felt little in the sense of national attachment. Perhaps she could plead the historical Canadian example, and advise Machaera and her people to wait patiently for the Hierarchy to choose to let them go. _Would_ the Hierarchy let them go? And if it did, by choice or necessity, would that be the best thing for the galaxy as a whole? What would be worse in the face of the Reapers—a Hierarchy military weakened by the loss of several colonies, or a Hierarchy military fractured by internal strife?

Machera did not wait for Shepard to formulate an answer to that question before she continued her story. "The leaders of the town held a meeting and finally decided that, eezo or no eezo, they valued the rich land of their ancestral farms, and the lifestyle that came from farming them, more than the eezo. They told the offworlders to go dig in the unsettled forests, but declined their offer." Machaera folded her arms. "Only it turned out they weren't merely offering.

"The Hierarchy has a law allowing the government to repossess property if they feel the greater good of the empire is at stake. When the Solregit homesteaders refused to accept the offer, the constabulary arrived to remove us by force. They came for my people with nightsticks and stun wands; we met them with scythes and rifles, and the Sundowner Rebellions began."

Shepard frowned. "A handful of farmers against the might of the Turian Hierarchy?"

Machaera took the skepticism in stride. "Oh, they took us off our land, of course—after calling in the military for support. But that was hardly the end of it. The mine's creation was plagued with acts of sabotage. The mining company was forced to bring in offworlders to work in it; none of us would take the jobs. And then the sabotage spread—to garrisons, armouries, government buildings, and the homes of anyone cooperating with the offworlders. The harder the government dealt with us, the more the other locals realized that the Unification Wars were on our doorstep once again, and the wider the revolution spread." Her eyes gleamed with a fanatic devotion.

"What was the point of all that?"

"Have you followed the course of the conflict on Garvug?" Machaera asked.

Shepard nodded. "Yes. Some corporations hoped to mine a planet populated by krogan and vorcha. When the natives objected, an armed insurrection broke out between the mining concerns' mercenaries and the locals."

"Just so. And eventually the companies, after losing too much of their shareholders' money prosecuting the war, folded and left the planet to its own people."

Shepard did not like the way the number of lives lost seemed to fail to factor into either Machaera's war or the Garvug conflict. She understood that there were some situations where she had no choice but to kill, or to ask her people to risk their own lives alongside her, but she would never, ever consider those situations to be the easiest route, nor would she take them solely for expediency's sake.

"This is what we hoped to accomplish. If we could make it cost too much—in money and time and supplies and lives—for the Hierarchy to hold Solregit, perhaps they would abandon it to us and leave." Her eyes narrowed. "Unfortunately, the Hierarchy is not a business, and they have values beyond their bottom line. They felt that to give in to us was to set a poor example for all the other colonies with dreams of independence. So they fought us on principle, and price be damned."

Machaera sucked in a ragged breath. "Nobody can sustain centuries of total warfare. And the Turian Hierarchy was not prepared to wipe us all out, either. The planet still needed occupying, to keep other species from claiming it, and the Hierarchy does not want to give fuel to other separatist groups by making martyrs of the Sundowners. So the war went in cycles, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, but always there, smouldering, waiting…. We burn, an eternal flame, until our land and our people are free. No matter how long it takes. No matter the cost." Machaera's eyes were fierce with pride.

Shepard found herself beginning to understand the root of the turian's vehemence. Truthfully, Shepard rather envied her; she could not imagine what it would be like to have a home that meant that much to her, something that she would fight for to the bitter end if…

_Yes. Of course she did._

With no personal attachment to anywhere on Earth or in space, Shepard had given her allegiance to the universe as a whole. She fought for everyone, not just people from Earth, not just human beings, but _everyone_.

She watched Machaera uneasily. On one hand, she envied the turian for her deep sense of belonging, and wondered what it might be like to have that sort of security, to know without doubt who you were and where you belonged. On the other hand, the advent of the Reapers left little room for regional squabbles, and Shepard feared that Machaera might gladly sacrifice Palaven—and who knew who else—if she thought it might serve her own ends.

"That's an interesting story," Shepard said carefully, "but it doesn't explain anything about you. I mean, I was raised by a Lutheran minister, and I still believe, more or less, in a higher power, but I wouldn't exactly call myself a practicing Christian." She was certainly nowhere near as religious as Ashley, who'd prayed faithfully each night, or Thane, who considered meditation a part of his everyday life. "I'm curious what made you, Machaera Perihelion, consider this revolution so important."

Something unreadable flickered across Machaera's eyes, a snake in deep grass, a tentacle in a foggy pond; something swift and elusive and deadly, to be sure, but something that would rather remain hidden.

"Do you really want to know?" she asked, her voice low and harsh.

Shepard nodded. "I'm trying to get to know Garrus' family. Seems that you're the most open-minded, so I figured I'd start with you."

The turian startled, taken aback, and then she smiled, and the smile was real. Shepard had suspected that was the key to win her over; to accord her the role she so desperately wanted.

"All right," Machaera said quietly. "All right, Shepard, I'll tell you this story, on the condition that you do not repeat it. This is not the stuff of hearthside tales to fire the imaginations of the next generation of Sundowners." She drew a ragged breath. "My father was a soldier for the revolution. There was a brushfire conflict raging in and around a seaside town called Maris, which was many days' drive away from my father's farm. He thought that the distance would help to cover his tracks, as he claimed to spend his time working the land while his wife kept the house and children. In fact, the farm was run by my mother and me while he was at war. I am not sure how they identified him—whether it was DNA or a holo image or a spy or how—but when I was seven years old, the Hierarchy noted my father as a person of interest and came for him.

On that night, my mother was away in town, having taken our xemna to market. A small mercy. My father and I were sitting in front of the hearth when the door to our house burst open and in came the local constabulary and a pack of armed guards. My dad tried to fight them off, and I know he did his best, but they overpowered him, and unfortunately he did not have time to turn his gun on himself."

"Unfortunately?" Shepard asked, wondering what kind of man Machaera's father had been to make her feel that way. Abusive? Neglectful?

"They wanted to make him talk," Machaera said grimly, and for a second her eyes shimmered with what might have been unshed tears. When she spoke next, though, her words were clipped, the detail sparse, as though to add any more would be more than she could bear.

"We were tied to our chairs, facing each other across our kitchen table. Our legs were lashed to the chair legs, our shoulders to the chair backs, our hands restrained by ropes wrapped underneath the table. We were bleeding and bruised. My father had shot three of the soldiers, one fatally. He was dead on the floor. An ambulance was carrying away the two he'd injured. Only one of them survived." The turian folded and refolded her hands in her lap.

"They wanted my father to tell them who was involved in his separatist cell. My father refused. The head constable pulled out a combat knife."

Machaera's gaze was unfocused, and suddenly Shepard was reminded of Thane Krios, and the way he looked when he was absorbed by one of his perfect memories. Turians didn't have that gift—or that curse—but Machaera could have fooled her.

"There were four bloody talons on the floor before he talked."

Shepard swallowed hard. To have a seven-year-old child sit there, watching as her father was tortured—no wonder Machaera was angry at the Turian Hierarchy. Shepard remembered the overwhelming mixture of grief and rage and disorientation that had crashed over her after the thresher maw attack on Akuze. She'd felt it again when Toombs had insisted that the encounter was deliberately engineered by Cerberus, and though she'd never been able to prove the truth of his statement, she'd had enough proof that Cerberus was bad news. She'd never felt more validated than when she told the Illusive Man to stuff it and blew up that damned Collector base.

"What happened then?" Shealmost feared to hear the answer.

"They left us there. Rubbing it in to my father how impotent he was. My mother came home the next day and found us, a pool of blood between us on the table. My father…" Machaera swallowed. "My father was executed as a traitor three days later."

"By the Hierarchy?"

Machaera snorted. "They'd already broken him. No. By the other Sundowners."

Shepard's jaw dropped—she hadn't been expecting that at all. "They blamed him for talking? That's ridiculous. Everyone has a breaking point under torture."

Machaera shook her head. "Not blame. Do you know what a blood oath is, Shepard?"

Shepard simply sat there, confused and horrified, wondering if she would ever comprehend Machaera.

"Any fool can make a promise, Shepard. Any idiot can spew meaningless words. A blood oath is a vow made with your life as the guarantee." Her talon traced a line over her heart. "All the Sundowners swear to hold their loyalty to their clan on the day they join the revolution. Giving those names was a violation of the oath. Justice demanded his life in forfeit."

Her eyes gleamed. "Truth be told, he asked for the execution—to deceive the Hierarchy into thinking there was dissention in our ranks, a possibility which an honourable suicide would preclude. It worked." She folded her arms as if in judgment. "It was the most we could salvage from the situation."

Shepard found herself searching frantically for something to say. This was one of those situations where words such as "I'm sorry" were so useless as to be insulting. Her father's death by disease was so different from an execution by one's own kinfolk that Shepard could not begin to understand how it would feel or what it would have done to seven-year-old Machaera. Shepard wondered if Machaera had questioned the reason for her father's death, as she would have done (as she _had_ done, though it was much harder to demand answers of a disease), or if the turian had been such a fanatical convert to the cause that she had managed somehow to overlook who had pulled the trigger in the end.

"Thank you," Shepard managed at last. "For your honesty. That couldn't have been easy to talk about."

Machaera regarded her and then nodded her head in what appeared to be an expression of respect. "It is not."

Shepard let out a breath. "Would it be any easier for me to ask you how you ended up with Bastion Vakarian of all people?"

The female turian leaned back and gave Shepard a wistful smile. "Of course. That is an old, old story we have all heard before. I was young and thought myself very clever. I joined the Hierarchy military in order to learn advanced soldiering from the very people I hoped to use those skills against. Let them spend the time and money sharing their knowledge with me; I was, by all rights, a citizen and the Sundowners had many false identities sowing confusion. It was difficult for the Hierarchy to weed out who was a loyalist and who a separatist; and I am told I am a fine liar for a turian."

Shepard frowned, remembering what she had been told about turians—that the species tended to lie by omission, but if questioned directly, would usually confess. She remembered how Garrus was evasive when there was something he didn't want to talk about. No matter how she sympathized with parts of the woman's story, Shepard reminded herself to be warned: Machaera could not be counted on to behave as the "typical turian" might.

"So, there I was, a young, single turian woman surrounded by fine-looking turian men, and while I had resigned myself early on to the notion that I might have to kill, maim, or otherwise harm some of those striking young men—and would have done so gladly if it had meant independence for my people—I had made no vow against enjoying their company while it lasted. Foolish me, I thought I could simply avoid getting attached, and for the first few years it worked. The military life is not conductive to long-term relationships, and most of my fellow soldiers were also seeking short-term entertainment, feeling that there would be plenty of time after their service was complete to establish families.

"And then, Bastion.

"We were involved in the assault on Shanxi. My unit was decimated, my commanders killed. They put my squad under Bastion Vakarian's command." Machaera shrugged helplessly. "Who can explain why the heart does what it does? He was bold and self-assured and handsome; he earned my respect, and he challenged me to prove myself. When I did, he was pleased, and I was glad to have his praise. Furthermore, the war was brutal, we had no idea what the humans were capable of, and it is customary for our people to seek comfort from one another. As we both were a match for each other on the battlefield, we wondered if we would match one another as well in a more intimate setting." From the way she lowered her eyes, Shepard guessed that they had, indeed, been a match.

"I knew from the beginning that it made no sense. I intended to return to Solregit and fight for independence as my family had for generations, with my father's blood to spur me on. Bastion was a decorated officer destined for a sterling C-Sec career; I firmly believe that he could have been a general had he stayed in the military. There was no future in it. And yet as time went on, as we stayed in contact and as we spent less of our leaves with our families, and more of our leaves with one another, I found myself beginning to hope that Bastion felt the same as I: that perhaps what we had together was something worth the sacrifice of both our destinies."

Machaera bowed her head. "I am ashamed to say that, Shepard. I can only imagine what my father would have thought of me."

Shepard hesitated. She didn't know Machaera's father at all, but she chanced a comment anyway. "I would like to think your father would have wanted to you find a path that made you happy."

The turian looked up and offered Shepard a soft smile.

"That is a nice thought." She swallowed and stared at the wall. "I had made my decision: to defy the Sundowners, even though the breaking of my blood oath would mean my own death should they find me. Unfortunately, Bastion's decision was the opposite of mine. On our last leave together, he told me…" Her voice broke at last. "He told me," she continued, struggling to keep her words steady, "that he was not willing to sacrifice his parents' goodwill or his opportunity to join C-Sec for me."

Shepard reached over and took the turian's hand. "What did you do?"

Machaera's mandibles pressed against her face. "I told him that he should weigh the arguments and then do what needed to be done, and I would do likewise. I suspect he was waiting for a scene—whether he was anticipating a fight or a flood of tears I do not know, but I gave him neither. I wished him the best, opened my omni-tool, and submitted a request for discharge, pleading the agricultural exemption, that I needed to leave the military to return to my family farm." Her talons clenched. "My discharge which was granted shortly thereafter. I boarded a transport. Flew back to Solregit. Planted a fifty-pound bomb in the basement of the local garrison and became a hero of the revolution."

She flexed her gloved fingers again. "If I was not, in my heart, my father's daughter then I swore to be so from that day onward." Her mandibles gaped and the grin she gave Shepard reminded the human of a skeleton's. "I threw myself into the war against the Hierarchy as though I were doing battle with my heartbreak itself."

"How did you find out that Bastion was married?"

"I still had his comm address. We…sent messages, for a time."

Shepard understood how that felt. She hadn't truly been in love before Garrus, but she had been fond of some of her ex-boyfriends, and when she'd been lonely, there had been a comfort in speaking with people she'd cared for once, people who still possessed at least some concern for her, or people she could pretend were her kin. She had no need for them now, she realized, not now when she had someone who would always be by her side.

Yet something felt not quite right with Machaera's story. What had Garrus said? That Machaera only spoke to his mother. Something else had to have happened, some further falling out, but Shepard was hesitant to call Machaera on it when the turian had already revealed so much.

The rebel's eyes glittered. "The worst of it…the worst of it, Shepard, is that I believed, and still do, that Bastion Vakarian loves me." She held Shepard's gaze, unflinching. "You may call me deluded, or you may believe that I am imagining the outcome that's easier for me to bear, but I honestly think that it hurt him to walk away. He held to his principles, when I would have sacrificed mine for him."

Shepard took a moment to think about that. She thought about Sidonis, how adamant she had been that shooting Sidonis was the wrong thing to do, and how Garrus, despite his passionate insistence to the contrary, had bent to her will. She feared she was perhaps more like Bastion Vakarian than she wanted to admit.

Still, self knowledge was never a bad thing. Now that she was aware of turian bonding and its consequences, she could be vigilant for situations where she might be taking advantage of Garrus' devotion. She could certainly never imagine him disagreeing about the most important thing of all: the threat of the Reapers. On that matter they were in perfect agreement.

###

Garrus' mother was waiting for him when he stepped out of Bastion's office and shut the door behind him.

He could hear his siblings' voices though the doors of the suite's sleeping quarters. The condo was so small now, with ten people in it. It had seemed so large only a few years ago, with just him and his father and the gulf of silence between them.

Garrus studied his mother. She looked thinner than he remembered, and frailer; her features seemed drawn, and her scales were dull. He had hoped he'd been imagining it over dinner. He hadn't been.

"Is everything okay?" he asked softly.

"I'm not feeling well," she murmured. "Don't worry, I have an appointment with the doctor in three weeks."

"That's a long time."

"The doctors on Palaven will be able to offer better care," she replied. "They're turian specialists, after all; the clinic doctors here know a little about all species and not a lot about any one in particular."

Garrus loved his mother, but her turian-centrism bothered him sometimes. She would never have advocated hostility to other species, but she nevertheless thought of the turian way as the right way and every other species' beliefs as vaguely suspect.

How the hell was he going to tell her about him and Shepard?

"Besides," she chided, "I should be asking that question of you."

Garrus hung his head. "He's never going to be happy with me. No matter what I do."

"Garrus," his mother said gently. "I am fond of your father, but…you and he are very different people. There comes a point where you must be what you are."

His mandibles gaped, "What if that…I mean, what if that affects you? Or my siblings?"

She repeated his name, just as she had when he was very small. "Garrus. Everything any of us does affects those around us. But just as it is possible for some to go through their lives caring nothing for the repercussions of their actions on others, so is it possible to err in the opposite direction, and spend so much time living for others' expectations that you find yourself hollow inside."

His mother held out her arms, and the Archangel of Omega came into them and put his arms around his mother's carapace, burying his face in her shoulder.

"I love you," she murmured. "I have been blessed to have you these many years."

As he withdrew, her eyes captured his. "You may not be aware that your father sometimes questions the course of his life, though he never speaks of it."

The news hit him like a thunderclap. His father? In doubt?

"He will pressure you to make the same choices, in order to validate his own. And you, Garrus, can look at him and see the ends to which those choices lead. Then you will know what decision to make." She rested her hand on his arm. "Whether or not I can be with you, Garrus, whatever the future may reveal, you will know that I will always love you as a mother."

It was, he realized, her permission.

He cleared his throat.

"You need to know before I tell him," he said quietly. "I have a bondmate."


End file.
